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RAGNAROK: 


THE  AGE  OF  FIRE  AND  GRAVEL. 


BY 

IGXATIUS  DOXNELLY, 

AUTHOR    OF   "ATLANTIS:    THE    ASTEDILUTIAN   'VrOr.LD.' 


ILLUSTRATED. 


"I  am  not  inclined  to  conclude  that  man  had  no  existence  at  all  before  the 
epoch  of  the  great  revolutions  of  the  earth.  He  might  have  inhabited  certain 
districts  of  no  great  extent,  whence,  after  these  terrible  events,  he  repeopled  the 
world.  Perhaps,  also,  the  spots  where  he  abode  were  swalloived  vp,  and  his 
bones  lie  buried  under  the  beds  of  the  present  «eas."— Cuvier. 


NEW    YORK: 
D.     A  PPL  ETON     AND     COMPANY, 

1,  3,  A>D  5  BOND  STREET. 

1883. 


COPTRIGHT  BY 

D.  APPLETON  A^^)  COMPAXT, 
1882. 


c  o  isr  T  E  ]sr  T  s . 


PART    L 
THE    DRIFT. 

CHAPTEE  PAGE 

I. — The  Characteristics  of  the  Drift  .            .            .1 

II. — The  Origin  of  the  Drift  not  known  .            .               8 

III. — The  Action  of  Waves        .            .  .            .            .10 

IV. — Was  it  caused  by  Icebergs?  .            .  .            .             13 

V. — Was  it  caused  by  Glaciers  ?         .  .            .            .17 

VI. — Was  it  caused  by  a  Continental  Ice-Sheet?  .             23 

VII. — The  Drift  a  Gigantic  Catastrophe  .            .            .43 

Vin. — Great  Heat  a  Prerequisite     .            .  .            .             58 


PART    IL 
THE    COMET. 

I. — A    COXTET   CAUSED   THE   DrLFT                  .  .                 o                 .63 

II. — What  is  a  Comet?       ,            .            .  .            .             65 

HI. — Could  a  Comet  strike  the  Earth?  .            .            .82 

TV. — The  Consequences  to  the  Earth         .  .           .             91 


iv  CONTENTS. 

PART     III. 
THE    LEGENDS. 

CHAPTSB  PAGE 

I. — The  XatuPwE  of  Myths        .  .  .  .  .113 

II. — Did  Man  exist  before  the  Drift?      .  .  .  121 

III. — Legends  of  the  Coming  of  the  Comet       .  .  .132 

IV. — Ragnarok  .  .  .  .  .  .  141 

v. — The  Conflagration  of  Phaeton     ....     154 

VI. — Other  Legends  of  the  Conflagration  .  .  166 

VII. — Legends  of  the  Cate-Life  .....     195 

VIII. — Legends  of  the  Age  of  Darkness       .  .  .  208 

IX.— The  Triumph  of  the  Sun    .  .  .  .  .233 

X. — The  Fall  of  the  Clay  and  Gravel    .  .  .  251 

XL — The  Arabian  Myths  .  ...     268 

XII.— The  Eook  of  Job  .  .  .  .  .  276 

XIII. — Genesis  read  by  the  Light  of  the  Comet  .  .316 


PART    IV. 

CONCLUSIONS. 

I. — Was  Pre-glacial  Man  civilized?        .            .            .  841 

II. — The  Scene  of  Man's  Survival       ....  366 

IIL— The  Bridge        ......  376 

IV. — Objections  considered         .....  389 

v.— Biela's  Comet     ......  408 

VI.— The  Universal  Belief  of  Mankind           .            .            .  424 

VII. — The  Earth  struck  by  Comets  many  Times      .            .  431 

VIII.— The  After-Word      .  .  .  .  .  -437 


LIST  OF  ILLUSTRATIONS. 


PAGE 

GEOGnAPHiCAL  DisTRiBCTioN  OF  THE  Drift         .  .       Fvontispicce. 

Till  oterlaid  with  Bowlder-Clay  .  .  .  .5 

Scratched  Stone,  from  the  Till  ....  6 

ElVER    ISSUING   FROM    A    SwiSS    GlACIER  .  .  .  .19 

Terminal  Moraine  .  .  .  .  .  .20 

Glacier-Fcrrows  and  Scratches  at  Stony  Point,  Lake  Erie      .     26 
Drift-Deposits  in  the  Tropics    .....  38 

Stratified  Beds  in  Till,  Leithen  Water,  Peeblesshire,  Scotland,     54 


Section  at  Joinville 

Orbits  of  the  Periodic  Comets 

Orbit  of  Earth  and  Comet  . 

The  Earth's  Orbit  .... 

The  Comet  sweeping  past  the  Earth 

The  Side  of  the  Earth  struck  by  the  Comet 

The  Side  not  struck  by  the  Comet 

The  Great  Comet  of  1811 

Crag  and  Tail  .... 

Solar  Spectrum   ..... 

Section  at  St.  Acheul 

The  Engis  Skull  .... 

The  Neanderthal  Skull 

Plummet  from  San  Joaquin  Valley,  California 


54 

83 

88 

89 

92 

93 

93 

95 

98 

103 

122 

124 

125 

ISO 


vi  LIST  OF  ILLUSTRATIONS. 

PAGE 

Comet  of  1862  .  .  .  .  .  .  .137 

CorRSE  OF  Don  ATI's  Comet  .  .  .  .  .157 

The  Primetal  Storm  .  .  .  .  .  .220 

The  Afrite  in  the  Pillar         .....         270 

Dahish  overtaken  by  Dimiriat        .....  272 

Earthen  Vase,  found  in  the  Cave  of  Fcrfooz,  Belgium      .         347 
Pre-glacial  Man's  Picture  of  the  Mammoth       .  .  .  349 

Pre-glaciax  Man's  Picture  of  Reindeer  .  .  .         850 

Pre-glacial  Man's  Picture  of  the  Horse  .  .  .351 

Specimen  of  Pre-glacial  Carving         ....         352 

Stone  Image  found  in  Ohio  .  .  .  .  .353 

Copper  Coin,  found  One  Hundred  and  Fourteen  Feet  Under- 
ground, IS  Illinois  ......         356 

Biela's  Comet,  split  in  two  .....  409 

Section  on  the  Schuylkill       .....         432 


RAGNAROK: 

THE    AGE    OF    EIRE    AND    GRAVEL. 


PAET  I. 
(j:i)e   Drift, 


CHAPTER     I. 

TEE  CIIARACTEEISTICS   OF  THE  DRIFT. 

Reader, — Let  us  reason  together  : — 

What  do  we  dwell  on  ?  The  earth.  What  part  of 
the  earth  ?  The  latest  formations,  of  course.  We  live 
upon  the  top  of  a  mighty  series  of  stratified  rocks,  laid 
down  in  the  water  of  ancient  seas  and  lakes,  during  in- 
calculable ages,  iaid,  by  geologists,  to  be  from  ten  to 
twenty  miles  in  thickness. 

Think   of   that  !     Rock   piled   over  rock,    from  the 

primeval  granite  upward,  to  a  height  four  times  greater 

than  our  highest  m,oimtains,  and  every  rock  stratified 

like  the  leaves  of  a  book  ;  and  every  leaf  containing  the 

records  of   an   intensely  interesting   history,  illustrated 

with  engravings,  in  the  shape  of  fossils,  of  all  forms  of 

life,  from  the  primordial  cell  up  to  the  bones  of  man  and 

his  implements. 

But  it  is  not  with  the  pages  of  this  sublime  volume 
2 


2  THE  DRIFT. 

we  have  to  deal  in  this  book.  It  is  with  a  vastly  dif- 
ferent but  equally  wonderful  formation. 

Upon  the  to^)  of  the  last  of  this  series  of  stratified 
rocks  we  find  The  Drift. 

What  is  it  ? 

Go  out  with  me  where  yonder  men  are  digging  a  well. 
Let  us  observe  the  material  they  are  casting  out. 

First  they  penetrate  through  a  few  inches  or  a  foot  or 
two  of  surface  soil ;  then  they  enter  a  vast  deposit  of 
sand,  gravel,  and  clay.  It  may  be  fifty,  one  hundred, 
five  hundred,  eight  hundred  feet,  before  they  reach  the 
stratified  rocks  on  which  this  drift  rests.  It  covers  whole 
continents.  It  is  our  earth.  It  makes  the  basis  of  our 
soils  ;  our  railroads  cut  their  way  through  it ;  our  car- 
riages drive  over  it  ;  our  cities  are  built  upon  it ;  our 
crops  are  derived  from  it ;  the  water  we  drink  percolates 
through  it  ;  on  it  we  live,  love,  marry,  raise  children, 
think,  dream,  and  die  ;  and  in  the  bosom  of  it  we  will  be 
buried. 

Where  did  it  come  from  ? 

That  is  what  I  propose  to  discuss  with  you  in  this 
work, — if  you  will  have  the  patience  to  follow  me. 

So  far  as  possible,  [as  I  shall  in  all  cases  speak  by  the 
voices  of  others,]  I  shall  summon  my  witnesses  that  you 
may  cross-examine  them.  I  shall  try,  to  the  best  of  my 
ability,  to  buttress  every  opinion  with  adequate  proofs. 
If  I  do  not  convince,  I  hope  at  least  to  intei*est  you. 

And  to  begin  :  let  us  understand  what  the  Drift  is, 
before  we  proceed  to  discuss  its  origin. 

In  the  first  place,  it  is  mainly  unstratified  ;  its  lower 
formation  is  altogether  so.  There  may  be  clearly  defined 
strata  here  and  there  in  it,  but  they  are  such  as  a  tem- 
pest might  make,  working  in  a  dust-heap  :  picking  up  a 
patch  here  and  laying  it  upon  another  there.      But  there 


THE  CHARACTERISTICS   OF  THE  DRIFT.  3 

are  no  continuous  layers  reaching  over  any  large  extent 
of  country. 

Sometimes  tlie  material  has  been  subsequently  \\"orked 
over  by  rivers,  and  been  distributed  over  limited  areas  in 
strata,  as  in  and  around  the  beds  of  streams. 

But  in  the  lower,  older,  and  first-laid-down  portion  of 
the  Drift,  called  in  Scotland  "the  till,"  and  in  other 
countries  "the  hard-pan,"  there  is  a  total  absence  of 
stratification. 

James  Geikie  says  : 

"In  describing  the  till,  I  remarked  that  the  irregular 
manner  in  which  the  stones  were  scattered  thi'ough  that 
deposit  imparted  to  it  a  confused  and  tumultuous  appear- 
ance. The  clay  does  not  arrange  itself  in  layers  or  beds, 
but  is  distinctly  unstratified."  * 

"  The  material  consisted  of  earth,  gravel,  and  stones, 
and  also  in  some  places  broken  trunks  or  branches  of 
trees.  Part  of  it  was  deposited  in  a  pell-mell  or  unstrati- 
fied condition  during  the  progress  of  the  period,  and  part 
either  stratified  or  unstratified  in  the  opening  part  of  the 
next  period  when  the  ice  melted."  f 

"  The  unstratified  drift  may  be  described  as  a  hetero- 
geneous mass  of  clay,  with  sand  and  gravel  in  varying 
proportions,  inclosing  the  transj^orted  fragments  of  rock, 
of  all  dimensions,  partially  rounded  or  worn  into  wedge- 
shaped  forms,  and  generally  with  surfaces  furrowed  or 
scratched,  the  whole  material  looking  as  if  it  had  been 
scraped  together,"  J 

The  "  till "  of  Scotland  is  "  spread  in  broad  but  some- 
what ragged  sheets  "  through  the  Lowlands,  "  continuous 
across  wide  tracts,"  while  in  the  Highland  and  upland  dis- 
tricts it  is  confined  principally  to  the  valleys.* 

*  "The  Great  Ice  Age,"  p.  21. 
\  Dana's  "  Text-Book,"  p.  220. 

X  "American  CyclopEedia,"  vol.  vi,  p.  111. 

*  "  Great  Ice  Age,"  Geikie,  p.  6. 


4  THE  DRIFT. 

"  The  lowest  member  is  invariably  a  tough,  stony  clay, 
called  'till'  or  'hard-pan.'  Throughout  wide  districts 
stony  clay  alone  occurs."  * 

"It  is  hard  to  say  whether  the  till  consists  more  of 
stones  or  of  clay."  f 

This  "  till,"  this  first  deposit,  will  be  found  to  be  the 
strangest  and  most  interesting. 

In  the  second  place,  although  the  Drift  is  found  on 
the  earth,  it  is  unfossiliferous.  That  is  to  say,  it  contains 
no  traces  of  pre-existent  or  contemporaneous  life. 

This,  when  we  consider  it,  is  an  extraordinary  fact : 

Where  on  the  face  of  this  life-marked  earth  could  such 
a  mass  of  material  be  gathered  up,  and  not  contain  any 
evidences  of  life  ?  It  is  as  if  one  were  to  say  that  he  had 
collected  the  detritus  of  a  great  city,  and  that  it  showed 
no  marks  of  man's  life  or  Avorks. 

"I  would  reiterate,"  says  Geikie,|  "that  nearly  all  the 
Scotch  shell-bearing  beds  belong  to  the  very  close  of  the 
glacial  period  ;  only  in  one  or  two  places  have  shells  ever 
been  obtained,  with  certainty,  from  a  bed  in  the  true  till 
of  Scotland.  They  occur  here  and  there  in  bowlder-clay, 
and  underneath  bowlder-clay,  in  maritime  districts  ;  but 
this  clay,  as  I  have  shown,  is  more  recent  than  the  till — 
in  fact,  rests  upon  its  eroded  surface." 

"  The  lower  bed  of  the  drift  is  entirely  destitute  of 
organic  remains."  * 

Sir  Charles  Lyell  tells  us  that  even  the  stratified  drift 
is  usually  devoid  of  fossils  : 

"  Whatever  may  be  the  cause,  the  fact  is  certain  that 
over  large  areas  in  Scotland,  Ireland,  and  Wales,  I  might 
add  throughout  the  northern  hemisplaere,  on  both  sides  of 
the  Atlantic,  the  stratified  drift  of  the  glacial  period  is 
very  commonly  devoid  of  fossils."  || 

*  "  Great  Ice  Age,"  Geikie,  p.  7.         t  Ibid.,  p.  9.         %  Ibid.,  p.  342. 

*  Rev.  0.  Fisher,  quoted  In  "  The  World  before  the  Deluge,"  p.  461. 
I)  "  Antiquity  of  Man,"  third  edition,  p.  2G8. 


THE   CHARACTERISTICS  OF  THE  DRIFT.  5 

In  the  next  place,  this  "  till "  differs  from  the  i-est  of 
the  Drift  in  its  exceeding  hardness  : 

"This  till  is  so  tough  that  engineers  would  much 
rather  excavate  the  most  obdurate  rocks  than  attempt  to 
remove  it  from  their  path.  Hard  rocks  are  more  or  less 
easily  assailable  with  gunpowder,  and  the  numerous  joints 
and  fissures  by  which  they  are  traversed  enable  the  work- 
men to  wedge  them  out  often  in  considerable  lumps.  But 
till  has  neither  crack  nor  joint  ;  it  will  not  blast,  and  to 
pick  it  to  pieces  is  a  very  slow  and  laborious  process. 
Should  streaks  of  sand  penetrate  it,  water  will  readily 
soak  through,  and  large  masses  will  then  run  or  collapse, 
as  soon  as  an  opening  is  made  into  it." 


Till  overlaid  with  Bowlder-Clat,  Eiveb  Stinchae. 
r,  Eock ;  ^,  Till ;  g^  Bowldcr-Olay  ;   x ,  Fine  Gravel,  etc. 

The  accompanying  cut  shows  the  manner  in  which  it 
is  distributed,  and  its  relations  to  the  other  deposits  of 
the  Drift. 

In  this  "till"  or  "hard-pan"  are  found  some  strange 
and  characteristic  stones.  They  are  bowlders,  not  water- 
worn,  not  rounded,  as  by  the  action  of  waves,  and  yet  not 
angular — for  every  point  and  projection  has  been  ground 
off.  They  are  not  very  large,  and  they  differ  in  this  and 
other  respects  from  the  bowlders  found  in  the  other  por- 
tions of  the  Drift.  These  stones  in  the  "till"  are  always 
striated — that  is,  cut  by  deep  lines  or  grooves,  usually 
running  lengthwise,  or  parallel  to  their  longest  diameter. 
The  cut  on  the  following  page  represents  one  of  them. 


THE  DRIFT. 


Above  this  clay  is  a  deposit  i-esembling  it,  and  yet  dif- 
fering from  it,  called  the  "  bowlder-clay."  This  is  not  so 
tough  or  hard.  The  bowlders  in  it  are  larger  and  more 
angular — sometimes  they  are  of  immense  size  ;   one  at 


Scratched  Stoxe  (Black  Shale),  fkosi  the  Till. 

Bradford,  Massachusetts,  is  estimated  to  weigh  4,500,000 
pounds.  Many  on  Cape  Cod  are  twenty  feet  in  diameter. 
One  at  Whitingham,  Vermont,  is  forty-three  feet  long  by 
thirty  feet  high,  or  40,000  cubic  feet  in  bulk.     In  some 


THE   CHARACTERISTICS   OF  THE  DRIFT.  7 

cases  no  rocks  of  the  same  material  are  found  within  two 
hundred  miles.* 

These  two  formations — the  "  till "  and  the  "  bowlder- 
clay  " — sometimes  pass  into  each  other  by  insensible  de- 
grees. At  other  times  the  distinction  is  marked.  Some 
of  the  stones  in  the  bowlder-clay  are  furrowed  or  striated, 
but  a  large  part  of  them  are  not ;  while  in  the  "  till "  the 
sto)ie  not  striated  is  the  rare  exception. 

Above  this  bowlder-clay  we  find  sometimes  beds  of 
loose  gravel,  sand,  and  stones,  mixed  with  the  remains  of 
man  and  other  animals.  These  have  all  the  appearance 
of  being  later  in  their  deposition,  and  of  having  been 
worked  over  by  the  action  of  water  and  ice. 

This,  then,  is,  briefly  stated,  the  condition  of  the  Drift. 

It  is  plain  that  it  was  the  result  of  violent  action  of 
some  kind. 

And  this  action  must  have  taken  place  upon  an  unpar- 
alleled and  continental  scale.     One  writer  describes  it  as, 

"A  remarkable  and  stupendous  period — a  period  so 
startling  that  it  might  justly  be  accepted  with  hesitation, 
were  not  the  conception  unavoidable  before  a  series  of 
facts  as  extraordinary  as  itself."  f 

Remember,  then,  in  the  discussions  which  folloAV,  that 
if  the  theories  advanced  are  gigantic,  the  facts  they  seek 
to  explain  are  not  less  so.  We  are  not  dealing  with  little 
things.  The  phenomena  are  continental,  world-wide, 
fflobe-embracinsr. 

*  Dana's  "  Text-Book,"  p.  221. 

f  Gratacap,  "  Ice  Age,"  "  Popular  Science  Moctlily,"  January,  1818. 


THE  DRIFT. 


CHAPTER  II. 

TEE  OEIGIJS'  OF  THE  DRIFT  NOT  ENOWN. 

While  several  different  origins  have  been  assigned  for 
the  phenomena  known  as  "the  Drift,"  and  while  one  or 
two  of  these  have  been  widely  accepted  and  taught  in  our 
schools  as  established  truths,  yet  it  is  not  too  much  to  say 
that  no  one  of  them  meets  all  the  requirements  of  the  case, 
or  is  assented  to  by  the  profoundest  thinkers  of  our  day. 

Says  one  authority  : 

"The  origin  of  the  unstratified  drift  is  a  question 
which  has  been  much  controverted."  * 

Louis  Figuier  says,f  after  considering  one  of  the  pro- 
posed theories : 

"  1^0  such  hypothesis  is  sufficient  to  explain  either  the 
cataclysms  or  the  glacial  phenomena  ;  and  we  need  not 
hesitate  to  confess  our  ignorance  of  this  strange,  this  mys- 
terious episode  in  the  history  of  our  globe.  .  .  .  Never- 
theless, we  repeat,  no  explanation'  presents  itself  which 
can  be  considered  conclusive  ;  and  in  science  we  should 
never  be  afraid  to  say,  I  do  not  know.'''' 

Geikie  says  : 

"  Many  geologists  can  not  yet  be  persuaded  that  till 
has  ever  formed  and  accumulated  under  ice."  J 

A  recent  scientific  writer,  after  summing  up  all  the 
facts  and  all  the  arguments,  makes  this  confession  : 

*  "  American  Cyclopjcdia,"  vol.  vi,  p.  112. 

■f-  "The  World  before  the  Deluge,"  pp.  435,  463. 

X  "  The  Great  Ice  Age,"  p.  370. 


THE   ORIGIN  OF   THE  DRIFT  NOT  KNOWN.  9 

"  From  the  foregoing  facts,  it  seems  to  me  that  \vc 
are  justified  in  concluding  : 

"  1.  That  however  simple  and  plausible  the  Lyellian 
hypothesis  may  be,  or  however  ingenious  the  extension 
or  application  of  it  suggested  by  Dana,  it  is  not  sustained 
by  any  proof,  and  the  testimony  of  the  rocks  seems  to  be 
decidedly  against  it. 

"  2.  Though  much  may  yet  be  learned  from  a  more 
extended  and  careful  stud}^  of  the  glacial  phenomena  of 
all  parts  of  both  hemispheres,  the  facts  already  gathered 
seem  to  be  incompatible  vnth  any  theory  yet  advanced 
which  makes  the  Ice  jjeriod  simply  a  series  of  telluric 
phenomena,  and  so  far  strengthens  the  arguments  of  those 
who  look  to  extraneous  and  cosmical  causes  for  the  origin 
of  these  phenomena."  * 

The  reader  will  therefore  understand  that,  in  advanc- 
ing into  this  argument,  he  is  not  invading  a  realm  where 
Science  has  already  set  up  her  walls  and  bounds  and  land- 
marks ;  but  rather  he  is  entering  a  forum  in  which  a 
great  debate  still  goes  on,  amid  the  clamor  of  many 
tongues. 

There  are  four  theories  by  which  it  has  been  at- 
tempted to  explain  the  Drift. 

These  are  : 
I.  The  action  of  great  waves  and  floods  of  water. 
II.  The  action  of  icebergs. 

III.  The  action  of  glaciers. 

IV.  The  action  of  a  continental  ice-sheet. 

We  will  consider  these  several  theories  in  their  order. 

*  "Popular  Science  Monthly,"  July,  1876,  p.  290. 


THE  DRIFT, 


CHAPTER  III. 

THE    ACTIO^^    OF    WAVES. 

WiiEX  men  began,  for  the  first  time,  to  study  the 
drift  deposits,  they  believed  that  they  found  in  them 
the  results  of  the  Noaehic  Deluge  ;  and  hence  the  Drift 
was  called  the  Diluvium,  and  the  period  of  time  in  which 
it  was  laid  down  was  entitled  the  Diluvial  age. 

It  was  supposed  that — 

"  Somehow  and  somewhere  in  the  far  north  a  series 
of  gigantic  waves  was  mysteriously  propagated.  These 
waves  were  supposed  to  have  precipitated  themselves 
upon  the  land,  and  then  swept  madly  over  mountain  and 
valley  alike,  carrying  along  with  them  a  mighty  burden 
of  rocks  and  stones  and  rubbish.  Such  deluges  Avere 
called  '  waves  of  translation.' "  * 

There  were  many  difficulties  about  this  theory  : 
In  the  first  place,  there  was  no  cause  assigned  for 
these  waves,  which  must  have  been  great  enough  to  have 
swept  over  the  toj)s  of  high  mountains,  for  the  evidences 
of  the  Drift  age  are  found  three  thousand  feet  above  the 
Baltic,  four  thousand  feet  high  in  the  Grampians  of  Scot- 
land, and  six  thousand  feet  high  in  New  England. 

In  the  next  place,  if  this  deposit  had  been  swept  up 
from  or  by  the  sea,  it  would  contain  marks  of  its  origin. 
The  shells  of  the  sea,  the  bones  of  fish,  the  remains  of 
seals  and  whales,  would  have  been  taken  up  by  these 
great  deluges,  and  carried  over  the  land,  and   have  re- 

*  "  The  Great  Ice  Age,"  p.  26. 


THE  ACTION  OF  WAVES.  H 

raained  mingled  in  the  debris  which  they  deposited.  This 
is  not  the  case.  The  unstratified  Drift  is  unfossiliferous, 
and  where  the  stratified  Drift  contains  fossils  they  are 
the  remains  of  land  animals,  except  in  a  few  low-lying  dis- 
tricts near  the  sea. 
I  quote  : 

"  Over  the  interioi*  of  the  continent  it  contains  no  ma- 
rine fossils  or  relicsy  * 

Geikie  says  : 

"  JVbt  a  single  trace  of  any  marine  organism  has  yet 
been  detected  in  true  till.''''\ 

Moreover,  if  the  sea-waves  made  these  great  deposits, 
they  must  have  picked  up  the  material  composing  them 
either  from  the  shores  of  the  sea  or  the  beds  of  streams. 
And  when  we  consider  the  vastness  of  the  drift-deposits, 
extending,  as  they  do,  over  continents,  with  a  depth  of 
hundreds  of  feet,  it  would  puzzle  us  to  say  where  were  the 
sea-beaches  or  rivers  on  the  globe  that  could  produce  such 
inconceivable  quantities  of  gravel,  sand,  and  clay.  The 
production  of  gravel  is  limited  to  a  small  marge  of  the 
ocean,  not  usually  more  than  a  mile  wide,  where  the  weaves 
and  the  rocks  meet.  If  we  suppose  the  whole  shore  of  the 
oceans  around  the  northern  half  of  America  to  be  piled 
up  with  gravel  five  hundi'ed  feet  thick,  it  would  go  but  a 
little  way  to  form  the  immense  deposits  w^hich  stretch 
from  the  Arctic  Sea  to  Patagonia. 

The  stones  of  the  "till"  are  strangely  marked,  striated, 
and  scratched,  with  lines  parallel  to  the  longest  diameter. 
No  such  stones  are  found  in  river-beds  or  on  sea-shores. 

Geikie  says  : 

"We  look  in  vain  for  striated  stones  in  the  gravel 
which  the  surf  drives  backward  and  forward  on  a  beach, 

*  Dana's  "  Text-Book,"  p.  220.  \  "  The  Great  Ice  Age,"  p.  15. 


12  THE  DRIFT. 

and  we  may  search  the  detritus  that  beaches  and  rivers 
push  along  their  beds,  but  ice  shall  not  find  any  stones  at 
all  resembling  those  of  the  tilV  * 

But  we  need  not  discuss  any  further  this  theory.  It 
is  now  almost  universally  abandoned. 

We  know  of  no  way  in  which  such  waves  could  be 
formed  ;  if  they  were  formed,  they  could  not  find  the  ma- 
terial to  carry  over  the  land  ;  if  they  did  find  it,  it  would 
not  have  the  markings  which  are  found  in  the  Drift,  and 
it  would  possess  marine  fossils  not  found  in  the  Drift ; 
and  the  waves  would  not  and  could  not  scratch  and 
groove  the  rock-surfaces  underneath  the  Drift,  as  we  know 
they  are  scratched  and  grooved. 

Let  us  then  dismiss  this  hypothesis,  and  proceed  to 
the  consideration  of  the  next. 

*  "  The  Great  Ice  Age,"  p.  69. 


WAS  IT  CAUSED  BY  ICEBERGS?  13 


CHAPTER  lY. 

WAS  IT  CAUSED  BY  ICEBERGS? 

We  come  now  to  a  much  more  reasonable  hypothesis, 
and  one  not  without  numerous  advocates  even  to  this  day, 
to  wit :  that  the  drift-deposits  were  caused  by  icebergs 
floating  down  in  deep  water  over  the  sunken  land,  loaded 
with  debris  from  the  Arctic  shores,  which  they  shed  as 
they  melted  in  the  warmer  seas  of  the  south. 

This  hypothesis  explains  the  carriage  of  enormous 
blocks  weighing  hundreds  of  tons  from  their  original  site 
to  where  they  are  now  found  ;  but  it  is  open  to  many 
unanswerable  objections. 

In  the  first  place,  if  the  Drift  had  been  deposited  un- 
der water  deep  enough  to  float  icebergs,  it  would  present 
throughout  unquestionable  evidences  of  stratification,  for 
the  reason  that  the  larger  masses  of  stone  would  fall  more 
rapidly  than  the  smaller,  and  would  be  found  at  the  bot- 
tom of  the  deposit.  If,  for  instance,  you  were  to  go  to 
the  top  of  a  shot-tower,  filled  with  water,  and  let  loose 
at  the  same  moment  a  quantity  of  cannon-balls,  musket- 
balls,  pistol-balls,  duck-shot,  reed-bird  shot,  and  fine 
sand,  all  mixed  together,  the  cannon-balls  would  reach 
the  bottom  first,  and  the  other  missiles  in  the  order  of 
their  size  ;  and  the  deposit  at  the  bottom  would  be  found 
to  be  regularly  stratified,  with  the  sand  and  the  finest 
shot  on  top.  But  nothing  of  this  kind  is  found  in  the 
Drift,  especially  in  the  "  till "  ;  clay,  sand,  gravel,  stones, 


14  THE  DRIFT. 

and  bowlders  are  all  found  mixed  together  in  the  utmost 
confusion,  "  higgledy-piggledy,  pell-mell." 
Says  Geikie  : 

"  Neither  can  till  owe  its  origin  to  icebergs.  If  it  had 
been  distributed  over  the  sea-bottom,  it  would  assuredly 
have  shown  some  kind  of  arrangement.  When  an  ice- 
berg drops  its  rubbish,  it  stands  to  reason  that  the  heavier 
blocks  will  reach  the  bottom  first,  then  the  smaller  stones, 
and  lastly  the  finer  ingredients.  There  is  no  such  assort- 
ment visible,  however,  in  the  normal  '  till,'  but  large  and 
small  stones  are  scattered  pretty  equally  through  the 
clay,  which,  moreover,  is  quite  unstratified."  * 

This  fact  alone  disposes  of  the  iceberg  theory  as  an 
explanation  of  the  Drift. 

Again  :  whenever  deposits  are  dropj^ed  in  the  sea,  they 
fall  uniformly  and  cover  the  surface  below  with  a  regular 
sheet,  conforming  to  the  inequalities  of  the  ground,  no 
thicker  in  one  place  than  another.  But  in  the  Drift  this 
is  not  the  case.  The  deposit  is  thicker  in  the  valleys  and 
thinner  on  the  hills,  sometimes  absent  altogether  on  the 
higher  elevations. 

"  The  true  bowlder-clay  is  spread  out  over  the  region 
under  consideration  as  a  somewhat  widely  extended  and 
uniform  sheet,  yet  it  may  be  said  to  fill  up  all  small  val- 
leys and  depressions,  and  to  be  thin  or  absent  on  ridges 
or  rising  grounds."  f 

That  is  to  say,  it  fell  as  a  snow-storm  falls,  di-iveu  by  high 
winds  ;  or  as  a  semi-fluid  mass  might  be  supposed  to  fall, 
draining  down  from  the  elevations  and  filling  up  the  hollows. 

Again  :  the  same  difficulty  presents  itself  which  we 
found  in  the  case  of  "the  waves  of  transplantation." 
"Where  did  the  material  of  the  Drift  come  from  ?  On  what 
sea-shore,  in  what  river-beds,  was  this  incalculable  mass 
of  clay,  gravel,  and  stones  found  ? 

*  "  The  Great  Ice  Age,"  p.  72.      f  "  American  Cyclopaedia,"  vol.  vi,  p.  112. 


WAS  IT  CAUSED   BY  ICEBERGS?  15 

Again  :  if  we  suppose  the  supply  to  have  existed  on 
the  Arctic  coasts,  the  question  comes, 

Would  the  icebergs  have  carried  it  over  the  face  of 
the  continents  ? 

Mr.  Croll  has  shown  very  clearly  *  that  the  icebergs 
nowadays  usually  sail  down  into  the  oceans  without  a 
scrap  of  debris  of  any  kind  upon  them. 

Again  :  how  could  the  icebergs  have  made  the  con- 
tinuous scratchings  or  strioe,  found  under  the  Drift  nearly 
all  over  the  continents  of  Europe  and  America  ?  Why, 
say  the  advocates  of  this  theory,  the  icebergs  press  upon 
the  bottom  of  the  sea,  and  with  the  stones  adhering  to 
their  base  they  make  those  strife. 

But  two  things  are  necessary  to  this  :  First,  that  there 
should  be  a  force  great  enough  to  drive  the  berg  over  the 
bottom  of  the  sea  when  it  has  once  grounded.  We  know 
of  no  such  force.  On  the  contrary,  we  do  know  that 
wherever  a  berg  grounds  it  stays  until  it  rocks  itself  to 
pieces  or  melts  away.  But,  suppose  there  was  such  a  pro- 
pelling force,  then  it  is  evident  that  whenever  the  iceberg 
floated  clear  of  the  bottom  it  would  cease  to  make  the 
striae,  and  would,  resume  them  only  when  it  nearly 
stranded  again.  That  is  to  say,  when  the  water  was  deep 
enough  for  the  berg  to  float  clear  of  the  bottom  of  the 
sea,  there  could  be  no  striae  ;  when  the  water  was  too 
shallow,  the  berg  would  not  float  at  all,  and  there  would 
be  no  strife.  The  berg  would  mark  the  rocks  only  where 
it  neither  floated  clear  nor  stranded.  Hence  we  would  find 
striae  only  at  a  certain  elevation,  while  the  rocks  below  or 
above  that  level  would  be  free  from  them.  But  this  is 
not  the  case  with  the  drift-markings.  They  pass  over 
mountains  and  down  into  the  deepest  valleys  ;  they  are 

*  "Climate  and  Time,"  p.  282. 


16  THE  DRIFT. 

universal  within  very  large  areas  ;  they  cover  the  face  of 
continents  and  disappear  under  the  waves  of  the  sea. 

It  is  simply  impossible  that  the  Drift  was  caused  by 
icebergs.  I  repeat,  when  they  floated  clear  of  the  rocks, 
of  course  they  would  not  mark  them;  when  the  water  was 
too  shallow  to  permit  them  to  float  at  all,  and  so  move 
onward,  of  course  they  could  not  mark  them.  The  stria- 
tions  would  occur  only  when  the  water  was  just  deep 
enough  to  float  the  berg,  and  not  deep  enough  to  raise 
the  berg  clear  of  the  rocks  ;  and  but  a  small  part  of  the 
bottom  of  the  sea  could  fulfill  these  conditions. 

Moreover,  when  the  waters  were  six  thousand  feet 
deep  in  New  England,  and  four  thousand  feet  deep  in 
Scotland,  and  over  the  tops  of  the  Rocky  Mountains, 
where  was  the  rest  of  the  world,  and  the  life  it  contained  ? 


WAS  ir  CAUSED  BY  GLACIERS?  I7 


CHAPTER   V. 

V^AS  IT  CAUSED  BY  GLACIERS F 

What  is  a  glacier  ?  It  is  a  river  of  ice,  crowded  by 
the  weight  of  mountain-ice  down  into  some  valley,  along 
which  it  descends  by  a  slow,  almost  imperceptible  mo- 
tion, due  to  a  power  of  the  ice,  under  the  force  of  gravity, 
to  rearrange  its  molecules.  It  is  fed  by  the  mountains 
and  melted  by  the  sun. 

The  glaciers  are  local  in  character,  and  comparatively 
few  in  number ;  they  are  confined  to  valleys  having  some 
general  slope  downward.  The  whole  Alpine  mass  does 
not  move  down  upon  the  j^lain.  The  movement  down- 
ward is  limited  to  these  glacier-rivers. 

The  glacier  complies  with  some  of  the  conditions  of 
the  problem.  "We  can  suppose  it  capable  of  taking  in  its 
giant  paw  a  mass  of  rock,  and  using  it  as  a  graver  to 
carve  deep  grooves  in  the  rock  below  it ;  and  we  can  see 
in  it  a  great  agency  for  breaking  up  rocks  and  carrying 
the  detritus  down  upon  the  plains.  But  here  the  resem- 
blance ends. 

That  high  authority  upon  this  subject,  James  Geikie, 
says  : 

"  But  we  can  not  fail  to  remark  that,  although  scratched 
and  polished  stones  occur  not  infrequently  in  the  frontal 
moraines  of  Alpine  glaciers,  yet  at  the  same  time  these 
moraines  do  not  at  all  resemble  till.  The  moraine  con- 
sists for  the  most  part  of  a  confused  heap  of  rough  awju- 
lar  stones  and  blocks,  and  loose  sand  and  debris  ;  scratched 


18  THE  DRIFT. 

stones  are  decidedly  in  the  minority,  and  indeed  a  close 
search  will  often  fail  to  shoio  them.  Clearly,  then,  the 
till  is  not  of  the  nature  of  a  terminal  moraine.  JEach 
stone  in  the  'till '  gives  evidence  of  having  been  subjected 
to  a  grinding  process.  ... 

"  We  look  in  vain,  however,  among  the  glaciers  of  the 
Alps  for  such  a  deposit.  The  scratched  stones  we  may 
occasionally  find,  hut  where  is  the  clay  .^  ...  It  is  clear 
that  the  conditions  for  the  gathering  of  a  stony  clay  like 
the  '  till '  do  not  obtain  (as  far  as  we  know)  among  the 
Alpine  glaciers.  There  is  too  much  water  circulating 
below  the  ice  there  to  allow  any  considerable  thickness  of 
such  a  deposit  to  accumulate."  * 

But  it  is  questionable  whether  the  glaciers  do  press 
with  a  steady  force  upon  the  rocks  beneath  so  as  to  score 
them.  As  a  rule,  the  base  of  the  glacier  is  full  of  wa- 
ter ;  rivers  flow  from  under  them.  The  opposite  picture, 
from  Professor  Winchell's  "  Sketches  of  Creation,"  page 
233,  does  not  represent  a  mass  of  ice,  hugging  the  rocks, 
holding  in  its  grasp  great  gravers  of  stone  with  which  to 
cut  the  face  of  the  rocks  into  deej)  grooves,  and  to  de- 
posit an  even  coating  of  rounded  stones  and  clay  over  the 
face  of  the  earth. 

On  the  contrary,  here  are  only  angular  masses  of  rock, 
and  a  stream  which  would  certainly  wash  away  any  clay 
which  might  be  formed. 

Let  Mr.  Dawkins  state  the  case  : 

"  The  hypothesis  upon  which  the  southern  extension 
is  founded — that  the  bowlder-clays  have  been  formed  by 
ice  melting  on  the  land — is  open  to  this  objection,  that 
no  similar  clays  have  been  jyrovedto  have  been  so  formed^ 
either  in  the  Arctic  regions,  where  the  ice-sheet  has  re- 
treated, or  in  the  districts  forsaken  by  the  glaciers  in  the 
Alps  or  Pyrenees,  or  in  any  other  mountain-chain.  .  .  . 

"  The  English  bowlder-clays,  as  a  whole,  differ  from 

*  "The  Great  Ice  Age,"  pp.  70-72. 


WAS  IT  CAUSED  BY  GLACIERS? 


19 


the  moraine  profonde  in  their  softness,  and  the  large  area 
which  they  cover.  Strata  of  bowlder-cl»y  at  all  compar- 
able to  the  great  clay  mantle  covering  the  lower  grounds 
of  Britain,  north  of  the  Thames,  are  conspicuous  by  their 
absence  from  the  glaciated  regions  of  Central  Europe  and 
the  Pyrenees,  which  were  not  depressed  beneath  the  sea."* 


V  lilMK   Is«LIJ.O   HvOM    \   ^\\I   --   (jLvcinr 


Moreover,  the  Drift,  especially  the  "  till,"  lies  in  great 
continental  sheets  of  clay  and  gravel,  of  comparatively 
uniform  thickness.  The  glaciers  could  not  form  such 
sheets  ;  they  deposit  their  material  in  long  ridges  called 
"  terminal  moraines." 

Agassiz,  the  great  advocate  of  the  ice-origin  of  the 
Drift,  says  : 

"  All  these  moraines  are  the  land-marks,  so  to  speak, 
by  which  we  trace  the  height  and  extent,  as  well  as  the 

*  Dawkias's  "Early  Man  in  Britain,"  pp.  116,  117. 


20 


THE  DRIFT. 


progress  and  retreat,  of  glaciers  in  former  times.  Sup- 
pose, for  instance,  that  a  glacier  were  to  disaj^pear  en- 
tirely. For  ages  it  has  been  a  gigantic  ice-raft,  receiving 
all  sorts  of  materials  on  its  surface  as  it  traveled  onward, 
and  bearing  them  along  with  it  ;  while  the  hard  particles 
of  rocks  set  in  its  lower  surface  have  been  polishing  and 
fashioning  the  whole  surface  over  which  it  extended. 
As  it  now  melts  it  drops  its  various  burdens  to  the 
ground  ;  bowlders  are  the  milestones  marking  the  different 
stages  of  its  journey  ;  the  terminal  and  lateral  moraines 
are  the  frame- work  which  it  erected  around  itself  as  it 
moved  forward,  and  which  define  its  boundaries  centuries 
after  it  has  vanished."* 


TermhsAL  Mukauste. 

And  Professor  Agassiz  gives  us,  on  page  307  of  the 
same  Avork,  the  above  representation  of  a  "  terminal  mo- 
raine." 

The  reader  can  see  at  once  that  these    semicircular 


*  "  Geological  Sketches,"  p.  308. 


WAS  IT  CAUSED   BY  GLACIERS?  21 

ridges  bear  no  resemblance  whatever  to  the  great  drift- 
deposits  of  the  world,  spread  out  in  vast  and  nearly  uni- 
form sheets,  without  stratification,  over  hills  and  plains 
alike. 

And  here  is  another  perplexity  :  It  might  naturally 
be  supposed  that  the  smoothed,  scratched,  and  smashed 
appearance  of  the  underlying  rocks  was  due  to  the  rub- 
bing and  rolling  of  the  stones  under  the  ice  of  the  gla- 
ciers ;  but,  strange  to  say,  we  find  that — 

"  The  scratched  and  polished  rock-sui'faces  are  by  no 
means  confined  to  till-covered  districts.  They  are  met 
with  everywhere  and  at  all  levels  throughout  the  country, 
from  the  sea-coast  up  to  near  the  tops  of  some  of  our 
higher  mountains.  The  lower  hill-ranges,  such  as  the 
Sidlaws,  the  Ochils,  the  Pentlands,  the  Kilbarchan  and 
Paisley  Hills,  and  others,  exhibit  polished  and  smoothed 
rock-surfaces  ooi  their  very  crest.  Similar  markings  streak 
and  score  the  rocks  up  to  a  great  height  in  the  deep  val- 
leys of  the  Highlands."  * 

We  can  realize,  in  our  imagination,  the  glacier  of  the 
mountain-valley  crushing  and  marking  the  bed  in  which 
it  moves,  or  even  the  plain  on  which  it  discharges  itself  ; 
but  it  is  impossible  to  conceive  of  a  glacier  upon  the  bare 
top  of  a  mountain,  without  walls  to  restrain  it  or  direct  its 
flow,  or  higher  ice  accumulations  to  feed  it. 

Again  : 

"  If  glaciers  descended,  as  they  did,  on  both  sides  of 
the  great  Alpine  ranges,  then  we  would  expect  to  find 
the  same  results  on  tlae  plains  of  Northern  Italy  that 
present  themselves  on  the  low  grounds  of  Switzerland. 
But  this  is  not  the  case.  On  the  plains  of  Italy  there  are 
no  traces  of  the  stony  clay  found  in  Switzerland  and  all 
over  Europe.  Neither  are  any  of  the  stones  of  the  drift 
of  Italy  scratched  or  striated."  f 

*  "  The  Great  Ice  Age,"  p.  73.  f  Ibid.,  pp.  491, 492. 


22  THE  DRIFT. 

But,  strange  to  say,  while,  as  Geikie  admits,  no  true 
"  till "  or  Drift  is  now  being  formed  by  or  under  the  gla- 
ciers of  Switzerland,  nevertheless  "  till "  is  found  in  that 
country  dissociated  from  the  glaciers.     Geikie  says  : 

."  In  the  low  grounds  of  Switzerland  we  get  a  dark, 
tough  clay,  packed  with  scratched  and  well-rubbed  stones, 
and  containing  here  and  there  some  admixture  of  sand 
and  irregular  beds  and  patches  of  earthy  gravel.  This 
clay  is  quite  unstratified,  and  the  strata  upon  which  it 
rests  frequently  exhibit  much  confusion,  being  turned  up 
on  end  and  bent  over,  exactly  as  in  this  country  the  rocks 
are  sometimes  broken  and  disturbed  below  till.  The 
whole  deposit  has  experienced  much  denudation,  but  even 
yet  it  covers  considerable  areas,  and  attaius  a  thickness 
varying  from  a  few  feet  up  to  not  less  than  thirty  feet  in 
thickness."  * 

Here,  then,  are  the  objections  to  this  theory  of  the 
glacier-origin  of  the  Drift : 

I.  The  glaciers  do  not  produce  striated  stones. 

II.  The  glaciers  do  not  produce  drift-clay. 

III.  The  glaciers  could  not  have  formed  continental 
sheets  of  "till." 

IV.  The  glaciers  could  not  have  existed  upon,  and 
consequently  could  not  have  striated,  the  mountain-tops. 

V.  The  glaciers  could  not  have  reached  to  the  great 
plains  of  the  continents  far  remote  from  valleys,  where  we 
still  find  the  Drift  and  drift-markings. 

VI.  The  glaciers  are  limited  in  number  and  confined 
in  their  operations,  and  were  utterly  inadequate  to  have 
produced  the  thousands  of  square  miles  of  dv'iit-debris 
which  we  find  enfolding  the  world. 

*  "The  Great  Ice  Age,"  p.  373. 


CAUSED  BY  CONTINENTAL  ICE-SHEETS?  23 


CHAPTER  VI. 

WAS  IT  CAUSED  BY  CONTINENTAL  ICE-SREETSf 

We  come  now  to  the  theory  which  is  at  present  most 
generally  accepted  : 

It  being  apparent  that  glaciers  were  not  adequate  to 
produce  the  results  which  we  find,  the  glacialists  have 
fallen  back  upon  an  extraordinary  hypothesis — to  wit, 
that  the  whole  north  and  south  regions  of  the  globe, 
extending  from  the  poles  to  35°  or  40°  of  north  and 
south  latitude,  were,  in  the  Drift  age,  covered  with  enor- 
mous, continuous  sheets  of  ice,  from  one  mile  thick  at  its 
southern  margin,  to  three  or  five  miles  thick  at  the  poles. 
As  they  find  drift-scratches  upon  the  tops  of  mountains 
in  Europe  three  to  four  thousand  feet  high,  and  in 
Xew  England  upon  elevations  six  thousand  feet  high,  it 
follows,  according  to  this  hypothesis,  that  the  ice-sheet 
must  have  been  considerably  higher  than  these  mountains, 
for  the  ice  must  have  been  thick  enough  to  cover  their 
tops,  and  high  enough  and  heavy  enough  above  their  tops 
to  press  down  upon  and  groove  and  scratch  the  rocks. 
And  as  the  strice  in  Northern  Europe  were  found  to  dis- 
regard the  conformation  of  the  continent  and  the  islands 
of  the  sea,  it  became  necessary  to  suppose  that  this  polar 
ice-sheet  filled  up  the  bays  and  seas,  so  that  one  could  have 
passed  dry-shod,  in  that  period,  from  France  to  the  north 
pole,  over  a  steadily  ascending  plane  of  ice. 

No  attempt  has  been  made  to  explain  where  all  this 


24  THE  DRIFT. 

ice  came  from  ;  or  what  force  lifted  the  moisture  into  the 
air  which,  afterward  descending,  constituted  these  world- 
cloaks  of  frozen  water. 

It  is,  perhaps,  easy  to  suppose  that  such  world-cloaks 
might  have  existed  ;  we  can  imagine  the  water  of  the 
seas  falling  on  the  continents,  and  freezing  as  it  fell, 
unto,  in  the  course  of  ages,  it  constituted  such  gigantic 
ice-sheets ;  but  something  more  than  this  is  needed. 
This  does  not  account  for  these  hundreds  of  feet  of  clay, 
bowlders,  and  gravel. 

But  it  is  supposed  that  these  were  torn  from  the  sur- 
face of  the  rocks  by  the  pressure  of  the  ice-sheet  moving 
southward.  But  what  would  make  it  move  southward  ? 
"We  know  that  some  of  our  mountains  are  covered  to-day 
with  immense  sheets  of  ice,  hundreds  and  thousands  of 
feet  in  thickness.  Do  these  descend  upon  the  flat  coun- 
try ?  No  ;  they  lie  there  and  melt,  and  are  renewed, — 
kept  in  equipoise  by  the  contending  forces  of  heat  and  cold. 

Why  should  the  ice-sheet  move  southward  ?  Because, 
say  the  "  glacialists,"  the  lands  of  the  northern  parts  of 
Europe  and  America  were  then  elevated  fifteen  hundred 
feet  higher  than  at  present,  and  this  gave  the  ice  a  sufli- 
cient  descent.  But  what  became  of  that  elevation  after- 
ward ?  Why,  it  went  down  again.  It  had  accommodat- 
ingly performed  its  function,  and  then  the  land  resumed 
its  old  place  ! 

But  did  the  land  rise  up  in  this  extraordinary  fashion  ? 

CroU  says  : 

"  The  greater  elevation  of  the  land  (in  the  Ice  period) 
is  simply  assumed  as  an  hypothesis  to  account  for  the 
cold.  The  facts  of  geology,  however,  are  fast  establish- 
ing the  opposite  conclusion,  viz.,  that  wh^n  the  country 
was  covered  with  ice,  the  land  stood  in  relation  to  the  sea 
at  a  lower  level  than  at  present,  and  that  the  continental 
periods  or  times,  when  the  land  stood  in  relation  to  the 


CAUSED  BY  COXTINEIVTAL  ICE-SHEETS?         25 

sea  at  a  higher  level  than  now,  were  the  warm  inter-gla- 
cial periods,  when  the  country  was  free  of  snow  and  ice, 
and  a  mild  and  equable  condition  of  climate  prevailed. 
This  is  the  conclusion  toward  which  we  are  being  led  by 
the  more  recent  revelations  of  surface-geology^,  and  also  by 
certain  facts  connected  with  the  geographical  distribution 
of  plants  and  animals  during  the  Glacial  epoch."  * 

H.  B.  Norton  says  : 

"  ^Yhen  we  come  to  study  the  cause  of  these  phenom- 
ena, we  find  many  perplexing  and  contradictory  theories 
in  the  field.  A  favorite  one  is  that  of  vertical  elevation. 
But  it  seems  impossible  to  admit  that  the  circle  inclosed 
within  the  parallel  of  40° — some  seven  thousand  miles  in 
diameter — could  have  been  elevated  to  such  a  height  as 
to  produce  this  remarkable  result.  This  would  be  a  sup- 
position hard  to  reconcile  with  the  present  proportion  of 
land  and  water  on  the  surface  of  the  globe  and  with  the 
phenomena  of  terrestrial  contraction  and  gravitation."  f 

We  have  seen  that  the  surface-rocks  underneath  the 
Drift  are  scored  and  grooved  by  some  external  force. 
Now  we  find  that  these  markings  do  not  all  run  in  the 
same  direction  ;  on  the  contrary,  they  cross  each  other 
in  an  extraordinary  manner.  The  cut  on  the  following 
page  illustrates  this. 

If  the  direction  of  the  motion  of  the  ice-sheets,  which 
caused  these  markings,  was, — as  the  glacialists  allege, — 
always  from  the  elevated  region  in  the  north  to  the  lower 
ground  in  the  south,  then  the  markings  must  always  have 
been  in  the  same  direction  :  given  a  fixed  cause,  we  must 
have  always  a  fixed  result.  We  shall  see,  as  we  go  on  in 
this  argument,  that  the  deposition  of  the  "till"  was  instan- 
taneous; and,  as  these  mai'kings  were  made  before  or  at  the 
same  time  the  "  till "  was  laid  down,  how  could  the  land 

*  "  Climate  and  Time,"  p.  391. 

f  "Popular  Science  Monthly,"  October,  1879,  p.  833. 


26  THE  DRIFT. 

possibly  have  bobbed  up  and  down,  now  here,  now  there, 
so  that  the  elevation  from  which  the  ice-sheet  descended 


Sketch  or  Glaciee-Fueeows  and  Scratches  at  Stoxt  Podtt, 
Lake  Eeie,  Michigan. 

a  a,  deep  water-line ;  b  b,  border  of  the  bank  of  earthy  materials  ;  c  c,  deep 

Earallel  grooves  four  and  a  half  feet  apart  and  t^'enty-five  feet  lon^, 
caring  north  60°  east ;  d,  a  set  of  grooves  and  scratches  bearing  nortli 
60°  west ;  e,  a  natural  bridge. 

[Whichell's  "  Sketches  of  Creation,"  p.  218.] 

was  one  moment  in  the  northeast,  and  the  next  moment 
had  whirled  away  into  the  northwest  ?    As  the  poet  says  : 

"...  Will  these  trees. 
That  have  outlived  the  eagle,  page  thy  steps 
And  skip,  when  thou  point'st  out  ?  " 


CAUSED  BY  CONTINENTAL  ICE-SHEETS?  27 

But  if  the  point  of  elevation  was  whisked  away  from 
east  to  west,  how  could  an  ice-sheet  a  mile  thick  instan- 
taneously adapt  itself  to  the  change  ?  For  all  these  mark- 
ings took  place  in  the  interval  between  the  time  when  the 
external  force,  whatever  it  was,  struck  the  rocks,  and  the 
time  when  a  sufficient  body  of  "  till "  had  been  laid  down 
to  shield  the  rocks  and  prevent  further  wear  and  tear. 
Neither  is  it  jjossible  to  suppose  an  ice-sheet,  a  mile  in 
thickness,  moving  in  two  diametrically  opposite  directions 
at  the  same  time. 

Again  :  the  ice-sheet  theory  requires  an  elevation  in 
the  north  and  a  descent  southwardly  ;  and  it  is  this  de- 
scent southwardly  which  is  supposed  to  have  given  the 
momentum  and  movement  by  Avhich  the  weight  of  the 
superincumbent  mass  of  ice  tore  up,  plowed  iip,  ground 
up,  and  smashed  up  the  face  of  the  surface-rocks,  and 
thus  formed  the  Drift  and  made  the  strice. 

But,  unfortunately,  when  we  come  to  apply  this  theory 
to  the  facts,  we  find  that  it  is  the  north  sides  of  the  hills  and 
mountains  that  are  striated,  while  the  south  sides  have  gone 
scot-free!  Surely,  if  weight  and  motion  made  the  Drift, 
then  the  groovings,  caused  by  weight  and  motion,  must 
have  been  more  distinct  upon  a  declivity  than  upon  an  as- 
cent. The  school-boy  toils  patiently  and  slow^ly  up  the  hill 
with  his  sled,  but  when  he  descends  he  comes  down  with 
railroad-speed,  scattering  the  snow  before  him  in  all  direc- 
tions. But  here  we  have  a  school-boy  that  tears  and  scat- 
ters things  going  ?/^:»-hill,  and  sneaks  down-hill  snail-fashion. 

"Professor  Hitchcock  remarks,  that  Mount  Monad- 
nock,  New  Hampshire,  3,250  feet  high,  is  scarified  from 
top  to  bottom  on  its  northern  side  and  western  side,  hut 
not  on  the  soutliern.''''  * 

This  state  of  things  is  universal  in  North  America. 

*  Dana's  "  Manual  of  Geology,"  p.  537. 


28  THE  DRIFT. 

But  let  us  look  at  another  point  : 

If  the  vast  deposits  of  sand,  gravel,  clay,  and  bowl- 
ders, which  are  found  in  Europe  and  America,  were  jDlaced 
there  by  a  great  continental  ice-sheet,  reaching  down 
from  the  north  pole  to  latitude  35°  or  40°  ;  if  it  was 
the  ice  that  toi-e  and  scraped  up  the  face  of  the  rocks  and 
rolled  the  stones  and  striated  them,  and  left  them  in  great 
sheets  and  heaps  all  over  the  land — then  it  follows,  as  a 
matter  of  course,  that  in  all  the  regions  equally  near  the 
pole,  and  equally  cold  in  climate,  the  ice  must  have 
formed  a  similar  sheet,  and  in  like  manner  have  torn  up 
the  rocks  and  ground  them  into  gravel  and  clay.  This 
conclusion  is  irresistible.  If  the  cold  of  the  north  caused 
the  ice,  and  the  ice  caused  the  Drift,  then  in  all  the  cold 
north-lands  there  must  have  been  ice,  and  consequently 
there  ought  to  have  been  Drift.  If  we  can  find,  therefore, 
any  extensive  cold  region  of  the  earth  where  the  Drift  is 
not,  then  we  can  not  escape  the  conclusion  that  the  cold 
and  the  ice  did  not  make  the  Drift. 

Let  us  see  :  One  of  the  coldest  regions  of  the  earth  is 
Siberia.  It  is  a  vast  tract  reaching  to  the  Arctic  Circle  ; 
it  is  the  north  part  of  the  Continent  of  Asia  ;  it  is  inter- 
sected by  great  mountain-ranges.  Here,  if  anywhere,  we 
should  find  the  Drift ;  here,  if  anywhere,  was  the  ice-field, 
"  the  sea  of  ice."  It  is  more  elevated  and  more  mountain- 
ous than  the  interior  of  North  America  where  the  drift- 
deposits  are  extensive  ;  it  is  nearer  the  pole  than  Xew 
York  and  Illinois,  covered  as  these  are  with  hundreds  of 
feet  of  debris,  and  yet  there  is  no  Drift  in  Sibet'ia  ! 

I  quote  from  a  high  authority,  and  a  firm  believer  in 
the  theory  that  glaciers  or  ice-sheets  caused  the  drift  ; 
James  Geikie  says  : 

"  It  is  remarkable  that  nowhere  in  the  great  plains  of 
Siberia  do  any  traces  of  glacial  action  appear  to  have 


CAUSED   BY  COXTIXEXTAL   ICE-SHEETS?  29 

been  observed.  If  cones  and  mounds  of  gravel  and  great 
erratics  like  those  that  sprinkle  so  wide  an  area  in  North- 
ern America  and  Northern  Europe  had  occurred,  they 
would  hardly  hare  failed  to  arrest  the  attention  of  ex- 
plorers. Middendorff  does,  indeed,  mention  the  occui'- 
rence  of  trains  of  large  erratics  which  he  observed  along 
the  banks  of  some  of  the  rivers,  but  these,  he  has  no 
doubt,  were  carried  down  by  river-ice.  The  general  char- 
acter of  the  'tundras'  is  that  of  wide,  flat  plains,  covered 
for  the  most  part  with  a  grassy  and  mossy  vegetation, 
but  here  and  there  bare  and  sandy.  Frequently  nothing 
intervenes  to  break  the  monotony  of  the  landscape.  .  .  . 
It  would  appear,  then,  that  in  Northern  Asia  represent- 
atives of  the  glacial  deposits  which  are  met  with  in  simi- 
lar latitudes  in  Europe  and  America  do  not  occur.  The 
northern  drift  of  Russia  and  Germany  ;  the  asar  of  Swe- 
den ;  the  kames,  eskers,  and  erratics  of  Britain  ;  and  the 
iceberg-drift  of  Northern  America  have,  apparently,  no 
equivalent  in  Siberia.  Consequently  we  find  the  great 
river-deposits,  with  their  mammalian  remains,  which  tell 
of  a  milder  climate  than  now  obtains  in  those  high  lati- 
tudes, still  lying  undisturbed  at  the  surface.''''  * 

Think  of  the  significance  of  all  this.  There  is  no 
Drift  in  Siberia  ;  no  "  till,"  no  "  bowlder-clay,"  no  strati- 
fied masses  of  gravel,  sand,  and  stones.  There  was,  then, 
no  Drift  age  in  all  Northern  Asia,  up  to  the  Arctic  Circle  ! 

How  pregnant  is  this  admission.  It  demolishes  at 
one  blow  the  whole  theory  that  the  Di'ift  came  of  the  ice. 
For  surely  if  we  could  expect  to  find  ice,  during  the  so- 
called  Glacial  age,  anywhere  on  the  face  of  our  planet,  it 
would  be  in  Siberia.  But,  if  there  was  an  ice-sheet  there, 
it  did  not  grind  up  the  rocks  ;  it  did  not  striate  them  ;  it 
did  not  roll  the  fragments  into  bowlders  and  pebbles  ;  it 
rested  so  quietly  on  the  face  of  the  land  that,  as  Geikie 
tells  us,  the  pre-glacial  deposits  throughout  Siberia,  with 
their  mammalian  remains,  are  still  found  ^Hying  icndis- 

*  "The  Great  Ice  Age,"  p.  460,  published  in  1873. 


30  THE  DRIFT. 

turbed  on  the  surface''^ ;  and  he  even  thinks  that  the  great 
mammals,  the  mammoth  and  the  woolly  rhinoceros,  "  may 
have  survived  in  Noi'thern  Asia  down  to  a  comparatively 
recent  date,"  *  ages  after  they  were  crushed  out  of  exist- 
ence by  the  Drift  of  Europe  and  America. 

Mr.  Geikie  seeks  to  account  for  tliis  extraordinary 
state  of  things  by  supposing  that  the  climate  of  Siberia 
was,  during  the  Glacial  age,  too  dry  to  furnish  snow  to 
make  the  ice-sheet.  But  when  it  is  remembered  that 
there  was  moisture  enough,  we  are  told,  in  Northern  Eu- 
rope and  America  at  that  time  to  form  a  layer  of  ice  from 
one  to  three  miles  in  tJiicJcness,  it  would  certainly  soem 
that  enough  ought  to  have  blown  across  the  eastern  line 
of  European  Russia  to  give  Siberia  a  fair  share  of  ice  and 
Drift.  The  explanation  is  more  extraordinary  than  the 
thing  it  explains.  One  third  of  the  water  of  all  the  oceans 
must  have  been  carried  up,  and  was  circulating  around  in 
the  air,  to  descend  upon  the  earth  in  rain  and  snow,  and 
vet  none  of  it  fell  on  Northern  Asia  !  And  as  the  line  of 
the  continents  separating  EurojDe  and  Asia  had  not  yet 
been  established,  it  can  not  be  supposed  that  the  Drift  re- 
fused to  enter  Asia  out  of  respect  to  the  geographical  lines. 

But  not  alone  is  the  Drift  absent  from  Siberia,  and, 
probably,  all  Asia  ;  it  does  not  extend  even  over  all  Eu- 
rope. Louis  Figuier  says  that  the  traces  of  glacial  ac- 
tion "  are  observed  in  all  the  north  of  Europe,  in  Russia, 
Iceland,  Norway,  Prussia,  the  British  Islands,  part  of  Ger- 
many in  the  north,  and  even  in  some  parts  of  the  south  of 
Spain."  f  M.  Edouard  Collomb  finds  only  a  "  a  shred  "  of 
the  glacial  evidences  in  France,  and  thinks  they  were 
absent  from  part  of  Russia  ! 

*  "The  Great  Ice  Age,"  p.  461. 

f  "The  World  before  the  Deluge,"  p.  451. 


CAUSED  BY  COXTIXEXTAL  ICE-SHEETS?         31 

And,  even  in  North  Amei'ica,  the  Drift  is  not  found 
everywhere.  There  is  a  remarkable  region,  embracing  a 
large  area  in  Wisconsin,  Iowa,  and  Minnesota,  which  Pro- 
fessor J.  D.  Whitney  *  calls  "  the  driftless  region,"  in 
which  no  drift,  no  clays,  no  gravel,  no  rock  stria3  or  fur- 
rows are  found.  The  rock-surfaces  have  not  been  ground 
down  and  j)olished.  "  This  is  the  more  remarkable,"  says 
Geikie,  "  seeing  that  the  regions  to  the  north,  west,  east, 
and  south  are  all  more  or  less  deeply  covered  with  drift- 
deposits."  f  And,  in  this  region,  as  in  Siberia,  the  remains 
of  the  large,  extinct  mammalia  are  found  imbedded  in  the 
surface-wash,  or  in  cracks  or  crevices  of  the  limestone. 

If  the  Drift  of  North  America  was  due  to  the  ice-sheet, 
why  is  there  no  drift-deposit  in  "  the  driftless  region  "  of 
the  Northwestern  States  of  America  ?  Sm-ely  this  region 
must  have  been  as  cold  as  Illinois,  Ohio,  etc.  It  is  now 
the  coldest  part  of  the  Union.  Why  should  the  ice  have 
left  this  oasis,  and  refused  to  form  on  it  ?  Or  why,  if  it 
did  form  on  it,  did  it  refuse  to  tear  up  the  rock-surfaces 
and  form  Drift  ? 

Again,  no  traces  of  northern  drift  are  found  in  Cali- 
fornia, which  is  siuTouuded  by  high  mountains,  in  some 
of  Vv'hich  fragments  of  glaciers  are  found  even  to  this 
day.t 

According  to  Foster,  the  Drift  did  not  extend  to  Ore- 
gon ;  and,  in  the  opinion  of  some,  it  does  not  reach  much 
beyond  the  western  boundary  of  Iowa. 

Nor  can  it  be  supposed  that  the  driftless  regions  of 
Siberia,  Northwestern  America,  and  the  Pacific  coast  are 
due  to  the  absence  of  ice  upon  them  during  the  Glacial 

*  "Report  of  the  Geological  Survey  of  Wisconsin,"  vol.  i,  p.  114. 
f  "  The  Great  Ice  Age,"  p.  465. 

X  Whitney,  "  Proceedings  of  the  California  Academy  of  Xatural 
Sciences." 


32  THE  DRIFT. 

age,  for  in  Siberia  the  remains  of  the  great  mammalia,  the 
mammoth,  the  woolly  rhinoceros,  the  bison,  and  the  horse, 
are  found  to  this  day  imbedded  in  great  masses  of  ice, 
which,  as  we  shall  see,  are  supposed  to  have  been  formed 
around  them  at  the  very  coming  of  the  Drift  age. 

But  there  is  another  difficulty  : 

Let  us  suppose  that  on  all  the  continents  an  ice-belt 
came  down  from  the  north  and  south  poles  to  35°  or  40° 
of  latitude,  and  there  stood,  massive  and  terrible,  like  the 
ice-sheet  of  Greenland,  frowning  over  the  remnant  of  the 
world,  and  giving  out  continually  fogs,  snow-storms,  and 
tempests  ;  what,  under  such  circumstances,  must  have 
been  the  climatic  conditions  of  the  narrow  belt  of  land 
which  these  ice-sheets  did  not  cover  ? 

Louis  Figuier  says  : 

"  Such  masses  of  ice  could  only  have  covered  the  earth 
when  the  temperature  of  the  air  was  lowered  at  least 
some  degrees  below  zero.  But  organic  life  is  incompati- 
ble with  such  a  temperature  ;  and  to  this  cause  must  we 
attribute  the  disappearance  of  certain  species  of  animals 
and  plants — in  particular  the  rhinoceros  and  the  elephant 
— which,  before  this  sudden  and  extraordinary  cooling  of 
the  globe,  appeared  to  have  limited  themselves,  in  im- 
mense herds,  to  Northern  Europe,  and  chiefly  to  Siberia, 
where  their  remains  have  been  found  in  such  prodigious 
quantities."  * 

But  if  the  now  temperate  region  of  Europe  and  Amer- 
ica was  subject  to  a  degree  of  cold  great  enough  to  de- 
stroy these  huge  animals,  then  there  could  not  have  been 
a  tropical  climate  anywhere  on  the  globe.  If  the  line  of 
35°  or  40°,  north  and  south,  was  several  degrees  heloio 
zero,  the  equator  must  have  been  at  least  below  the  frost- 
point.     And,  if  so,  how  can  we  account  for  the  survival, 

*  "  The  World  before  the  Deluge,"  p.  462. 


CAUSED  BY  COXTIXEXTAL   ICE-SHEETS?  33 

to  our  own  time,  of  innumerable  tropical  plants  tliat  can 
not  stand  for  one  instant  the  breath  of  frost,  and  whose 
fossilized  remains  are  found  in  the  rocks  prior  to  the 
Drift  ?  As  they  lived  through  the  Glacial  age,  it  could 
not  have  been  a  period  of  great  and  intense  cold.  And 
this  conclusion  is  in  accordance  with  the  results  of  the 
latest  researches  of  the  scientists  : — 

"  In  his  valuable  studies  upon  the  diluvial  flora.  Count 
Gaston  de  Saporta  concludes  that  the  climate  in  this  pe- 
riod was  marked  rather  bv  extreme  moisture  than  extreme 
cold." 

Again  :  where  did  the  clay,  which  is  deposited  in  such 
gigantic  masses,  hundreds  of  feet  thick,  over  the  conti- 
nents, come  from?  We  have  seen  (p.  18,  ante)  that,  ac- 
cording to  Mr.  Dawkins,  "  no  such  clay  has  been  proved 
to  have  been  formed,  either  in  the  Arctic  regions,  lohence 
the  ice-sheet  has  retreated,  or  in  the  districts  forsaken  by 
the  glaciers." 

If  the  Arctic  ice-sheet  does  not  create  such  a  clay 
now,  why  did  it  create  it  centuries  ago  on  the  plains  of 
England  or  Illinois  ? 

The  other  day  I  traveled  from  Minnesota  to  Cape 
May,  on  the  shore  of  the  Atlantic,  a  distance  of  about 
fifteen  hundred  miles.  At  scarcely  any  point  was  I  out 
of  sight  of  the  red  clay  and  gravel  of  the  Drift  :  it 
loomed  up  amid  the  beach-sands  of  Xew  Jersey  ;  it  was 
laid  bare  by  railroad-cuts  in  the  plains  of  New  York  and 
Pennsylvania  ;  it  covered  the  highest  tops  of  the  Alle- 
ghanies  at  Altoona  ;  the  farmers  of  Ohio,  Indiana,  lUi-- 
nois,  and  Wisconsin  were  raising  crops  upon  it ;  it  was 
everywhere.  If  one  had  laid  down  a  handful  of  the  Wis- 
consin Drift  alongside  of  a  handful  of  the  New  Jersey 
deposit,  he  could  scarcely  have  perceived  any  difference 
between  them. 


34  THE  DRIFT. 

Here,  then,  is  a  geological  formation,  almost  identical 
in  character,  fifteen  hundred  miles  long  from  east  to  west, 
and  reaching  through  the  whole  length  of  North  and 
South  America,  from  the  Arctic  Circle  to  Patagonia. 

Did  ice  grind  this  out  of  the  granite  ? 

Where  did  it  get  the  granite  ?  The  granite  reaches 
the  surface  only  in  limited  areas  ;  as  a  rule,  it  is  buried 
many  miles  in  depth  under  the  sedimentary  rocks. 

How  did  the  ice  pick  out  its  materials  so  as  to  grind 
nothing  hut  granite  ? 

This  deposit  overlies  limestone  and  sandstone.  The 
ice-sheet  rested  upon  them.  Why  were  they  not  ground 
up  with  the  granite  ?  Did  the  ice  intelligently  pick  out  a 
particular  kind  of  rock,  and  that  the  hardest  of  them  all  ? 

But  here  is  another  marvel — this  clay  is  red.  The  red 
is  due  to  the  grinding  up  of  mica  and  hornblende.  Granite 
is  composed  of  quartz,  feldspar,  and  mica.  In  syenitic 
granite  the  materials  are  quartz,  feldspar,  and  hornblende. 
Mica  and  hornblende  contain  considerable  oxide  of  iron, 
while  feldspar  has  none.  When  mica  and  hornblende  are 
ground  up,  the  result  is  blue  or  red  clays,  as  the  oxida- 
tion of  the  iron  turns  the  clay  red  ;  while  the  clay  made 
of  feldspar  is  light  yellow  or  white. 

Now,  then,  not  only  did  the  ice-sheet  select  for  grind- 
ing the  granite  rocks,  and  refuse  to  touch  the  others,  but  it 
put  the  granite  itself  through  some  mysterious  process  by 
which  it  separated  the  feldspar  from  the  mica  and  horn- 
blende, and  manufactured  a  white  or  yellow  clay  out  of 
the  one,  which  it  deposited  in  great  sheets  by  itself,  as 
west  of  the  Mississippi ;  while  it  ground  up  the  mica  and 
hornblende  and  made  blue  or  red  clays,  which  it  laid 
down  elsewhere,  as  the  red  clays  are  spread  over  that 
great  stretch  of  fifteen  hundred  miles  to  which  I  have 
referred. 


CAUSED  BY  CONTINENTAL  ICE-SHEETS?  35 

Can  any  one  suppose  that  ice  could  so  discriminate? 

And  if  it  by  any  means  effected  tliis  separation  of  the 
particles  of  granite,  indissolubly  knit  together,  how  could 
it  perpetuate  that  separation  while  moving  over  the  land, 
crushing  all  beneath  and  before  it,  and  leave  it  on  the 
face  of  the  earth  free  from  commixture  with  the  surface 
rocks  ? 

Again  :  the  ice-sheets  which  now  exist  in  the  remote 
north  do  not  move  with  a  constant  and  regular  motion 
southward,  grinding  up  the  rocks  as  they  go.  A  recent 
wi'iter,  describing  the  appearance  of  things  in  Greenland, 
says  : 

"  The  coasts  are  deeply  indented  with  numerous  bays 
and  fiords  or  firths,  which,  when  traced  inland,  are  almost 
invariably  found  to  terminate  against  glaciers.  Thick  ice 
frequently  appears,  too,  crowning  the  exposed  sea-cliffs, 
from  the  edges  of  which  it  droops  in  thicJc,  tongue-like, 
and  stcdzictitic  projections,  until  its  own  weight  forces  it 
to  break  away  and  topple  down  the  precipices  into  the 
sea."  * 

This  does  not  represent  an  ice-sheet  moving  down 
continuously  from  the  high  grounds  and  tearing  up  the 
rocks.  It  rather  breaks  off  like  great  icicles  from  the 
eaves  of  a  house. 

Again  :  the  ice-sheets  to-day  do  not  striate  or  groove 
the  rocks  over  which  they  move. 

Mr.  Campbell,  author  of  two  works  in  defense  of  the 
iceberg  theory — "Fire  and  Frost,"  and  "A  Short  Ameri- 
can Tramp" — went,  in  1864,  to  the  coasts  of  Labrador, 
the  Strait  of  Belle  Isle,  and  the  Gulf  of  St.  Lawrence, 
for  the  express  purpose  of  witnessing  the  effects  of  ice- 
bergs, and  testing  the  theory  he  had  formed.  On  the 
coast  of  Labrador  he  reports  that  at  Hanly  Harbor,  where 

*  "  Popular  Science  Monthly,"  April,  18V4,  p.  646. 


36  THE  DRIFT. 

the  whole  strait  is  blocked  up  with  ice  each  winter,  and 
the  great  mass  swung  bodily  up  and  down,  "  grating  along 
the  bottom  at  all  depths,"  he  "  found  the  rocks  ground 
smooth,  but  not  striated.""  *  At  Cape  Charles  and  Battle 
Harbor,  he  reports,  "  the  rocks  at  the  water-line  are  7iot 
striated.'''' \  At  St.  Francis  Harbor,  "the  water-line  is 
much  rubbed  smooth,  but  not  striated.''''  J  At  Sea  Islands, 
he  says,  "No  striae  are  to  be  seen  at  the  land-wash  in 
these  sounds  or  on  open  sea-coasts  near  the  present  v^'ater- 
line."  « 

Again  :  if  these  drift-deposits,  these  vast  accumula- 
tions of  sand,  clay,  gravel,  and  bowlders,  were  caused 
by  a  great  continental  ice-sheet  scraping  and  tearing  the 
rocks  on  which  it  rested,  and  constantly  moving  toward 
the  sun,  then  not  only  would  we  find,  as  I  have  suggested 
in  the  case  of  glaciers,  the  accumulated  masses  of  rub- 
bish piled  up  in  great  windrows  or  ridges  along  the  lines 
where  the  face  of  the  ice-sheet  melted,  but  we  would 
natui'ally  expect  that  the  farther  north  we  went  the  less 
we  would  find  of  these  materials  ;  in  other  words,  that 
the  ice,  advancing  southwardly,  would  sweej)  the  north 
clear  of  debris  to  pile  it  up  in  the  more  southern  regions. 
But  this  is  far  from  being  the  case.  On  the  contrary,  the 
great  masses  of  the  Drift  extend  as  far  north  as  the  land 
itself.  In  the  remote,  barren  grounds  of  North  America, 
we  are  told  by  various  travelers  who  have  visited  those 
regions,  "  sand-hills  and  erratics  appear  to  be  as  common 
as  in  the  countries  farther  south."  ||  Captain  Bach  tells 
us^  that  he  saw  great  chains  of  sand-hills,  stretching 

*  "  A  Short  American  Tramp,"  pp.  68,  lOV. 

f  Ibid.,  p.  68.  X  IWd.,  p.  72. 

,     «  Ibid.,  p.  76.  II  "  The  Great  Ice  Age,"  p.  391. 

■^  "  Narrative  of  Arctic  Land  Expedition  to  the  Mouth  of  the  Great 
Fish  Paver,"  pp.  140,  346. 


CAUSED  BY  CONTINENTAL  ICE-SHEETS?         37 

away  from  each  side  of  the  valley  of  the  Great  Fish 
River,  in  north  latitude  C6°,  of  great  height,  and  crowned 
with  gigantic  bowlders. 

Why  did  not  the  advancing  ice-sheet  drive  these  de- 
posits southward  over  the  plains  of  the  United  States? 
Can  we  conceive  of  a  force  that  was  powerful  enough  to 
grind  up  the  solid  rocks,  and  yet  was  not  able  to  remove 
its  own  debris/ 

But  there  is  still  another  reason  which  ought  to  sat- 
isfy us,  once  for  all,  that  the  drift-deposits  were  not  due 
to  the  pressure  of  a  great  continental  ice-sheet.  It  is 
this  : 

If  the  presence  of  the  Drift  proves  that  the  country 
in  which  it  is  found  was  once  covered  with  a  body  of  ice 
thick  and  heavy  enough  by  its  pressure  and  weight  to 
grind  up  the  surface-rocks  into  clay,  sand,  gravel,  and 
bowlders,  then  the  tropical  regions  of  the  world  must 
have  been  covered  with  such  a  great  ice-sheet,  upon  the 
very  equator ;  for  Agassiz  found  in  Brazil  a  vast  sheet  of 
"  ferruginous  clay  with  pebbles,"  which  covers  the  whole 
country,  "a  sheet  of  drift,"  says  Agassiz,  "consisting  of 
the  same  homogeneous,  unstratified  paste,  and  containing 
loose  materials  of  all  sorts  and  sizes,"  deep  red  in  color, 
and  distributed,  as  in  the  north,  in  uneven  hills,  while 
sometimes  it  is  reduced  to  a  thin  deposit.  It  is  recent 
in  time,  although  overlying  rocks  ancient  geologically. 
Agassiz  had  no  doubt  whatever  that  it  was  of  glacial 
origin. 

Professor  Hartt,  who  accompanied  Professor  Agassiz 
in  his  South  American  travels,  and  published  a  valuable 
work  called  "  The  Geology  of  Brazil,"  describes  drift- 
deposits  as  covering  the  province  of  Para,  Brazil,  upon 
the  equator  itself.  The  whole  valley  of  the  Amazon  is 
covered  with  stratified  and  unstratified  and  unfossiliferous 


38 


THE  DRIFT. 


Drift,*  and  also  with  a  peculiar  drift-clay  {argile  ^j)/as- 
tiqiie  bigarree),  plastic  and  streaked. 

Professor  Hartr  gives  a  cut  from  which  I  copy  the 
following  representation  of  drift-clay  and  pebbles  overly- 
ing a  gneiss  hillock  of  the  Serra  do  Mar,  Brazil : 


Drift-Deposits  dt  the  Tkopics. 

c,  drift-clay ;  /f,  angular  fracrments  of  quartz ;  c.  sheet  of  pebbles ;  d  d, 
gneiss'in  situ ;  gc/,  quartz'and  granite  veins  traversing  the  gneiss. 

But  here  is  the  dilemma  to  which  the  glacialists  are 
reduced  :  If  an  ice-sheet  a  mile  in  thickness,  or  even  one 
hundred  feet  in  thickness,  was  necessary  to  produce  the 
Drift,  and  if  it  covered  the  equatorial  regions  of  Brazil, 
then  there  is  no  reason  why  the  same  climatic  conditions 
should  not  have  produced  the  same  results  in  Africa  and 
Asia  ;  and  the  result  would  be  that  the  entire  globe,  from 
pole  to  pole,  must  have  rolled  for  days,  years,  or  centu- 
ries, wrapped  in  a  continuous  casing,  mantle,  or  shroud 
of  ice,  under  which  all  vegetable  and  animal  life  must 
have  utterly  perished. 

*  "  Geology  of  Brazil,"  p.  4S8. 


CAUSED  BY  CONTINENTAL  ICE-SHEETS?         39 

And  we  are  not  without  evidences  that  the  drift- 
deposits  are  found  in  xVfrica.  We  know  that  they  extend 
in  Europe  to  the  Mediterranean.  The  "Journal  of  the 
Geographical  Society"  (British)  has  a  paper  by  George 
Man,  F.  G.  S.,  on  the  geology  of  Morocco,  in  which  he 
says  : 

"  Glacial  moraines  may  be  seen  on  this  range  nearly 
eight  thousand  feet  above  the  sea,  forming  gigantic  ridges 
and  mounds  of  porphyritic  blocks,  in  some  places  dam- 
ming up  the  ravines,  and  at  the  foot  of  Atlas  are  enor- 
mous mounds  of  bowlders." 

These  mounds  oftentimes  rise  two  thousand  feet  above 
the  level  of  the  plain,  and,  according  to  Mi\  Man,  were  pro- 
duced by  glaciers. 

AYe  shall  see,  hereafter,  that  the  sands  bordering  Egypt 
belong  to  the  Drift  age.  The  diamond -bearing  gravels 
of  South  Africa  extend  to  within  twenty-two  degrees  of 
the  equator. 

It  is  even  a  question  whether  that  great  desolate  land, 
the  Desert  of  Sahara,  covering  a  third  of  the  Continent 
of  Africa,  is  not  the  direct  result  of  this  signal  catastro- 
phe. Henry  "W.  Haynes  tells  us  that  drift-dej)osits  are 
found  in  the  Desert  of  Sahara,  and  that — 

"  In  the  bottoms  of  the  dry  ravines,  or  wadys,  which 
pierce  the  hills  that  bound  the  valley  of  the  Nile,  I  have 
found  numerous  specimens  of  flint  axes  of  the  type  of 
St.  Acheul,  which  have  been  adjudged  to  be  true  palfeo- 
lithic  implements  by  some  of  the  most  eminent  cultiva- 
tors of  prehistoric  science."* 

The  sand  and  gravel  of  Sahara  are  underlaid  by  a  de- 
posit of  clay. 

Bayard    Taylor    describes   in   the    center    of   Africa 

*  "  The  Paleolithic  Implements  of  the  Valley  of  the  Delaware," 
Cambridge,  18S1. 


40  THE  DRIFT. 

great  plains  of  coarse  gravel,  dotted  with  gray  granite 
bowlders.* 

In  the  United  States  Professor  Winchell  shows  that 
the  drift-deposits  extend  to  the  Gulf  of  Mexico.  At 
Jackson,  in  Southern  Alabama,  he  found  deposits  of  peb- 
bles one  hundred  feet  in  thickness,  f 

If  there  are  no  drift-deposits  except  where  the  great 
ice-sheet  ground  them  out  of  the  rocks,  then  a  shroud  of 
death  once  wrapped  the  entire  globe,  and  all  Ufe  ceased. 

But  we  know  that  all  life, — vegetable,  animal,  and 
human, — is  derived  from  pre-glacial  sources  ;  therefore 
animal,  vegetable,  and  human  life  did  not  perish  in  the 
Drift  age  ;  therefore  an  ice-sheet  did  not  wrap  the  world 
in  its  death-pall  ;  therefore  the  drift-deposits  of  the 
tropics  were  not  due  to  an  ice-sheet  ;  therefore  the  drift- 
deposits  of  the  rest  of  the  world  were  not  due  to  ice- 
sheets  :  therefore  Ave  must  look  elsewhere  for  their  ori- 
gin. 

There  is  no  escaping  these  conclusions.  Agassiz  him- 
self says,  describing  the  Glacial  age  : 

"  All  the  springs  were  dried  up  ;  the  rivers  ceased  to 
flow.  To  the  movements  of  a  numerous  and  animated 
creation  succeeded  the  sileyice  of  death.''"' 

If  the  verdure  was  covered  with  ice  a  mile  in  thick- 
ness, all  animals  that  lived  on  vegetation  of  any  kind 
must  have  perished  ;  consequently,  all  cai'nivores  which 
lived  on  these  must  have  ceased  to  exist ;  and  man  him- 
self, without  animal  or  vegetable  food,  must  have  disap- 
peared for  ever. 

A  writer,  describing  Greenland  wrapped  in  such  an  ice- 
sheet,  says  : 

*  "  Travels  in  Africa,"  p.  188. 

t  "  Sketchoe  of  Creation,"  pp.  222,  223. 


CAUSED  BY  COXTIXENTAL  ICE-SHEETS?         41 

"  The  whole  interior  seems  to  be  buried  beneath  a 
great  depth  of  snow  and  ice,  which  loads  up  the  valleys 
and  wraps  over  the  hills.  The  scene  opening  to  view  in 
the  interior  is  desolate  in  the  extreme — nothing  but  one 
dead,  dreary  expanse  of  white,  so  far  as  the  eye  can  reach 
— no  living  creature  frequents  this  loilderness — neither 
bird,  beast,  nor  insect.  The  silence,  deep  as  death,  is 
broken  only  when  the  roaring  storm  arises  to  sweep  be- 
fore it  the  pitiless,  blinding  snow."  * 

And  yet  the  glacialists  would  have  us  believe  that 
Brazil  and  Africa,  and  the  whole  globe,  wei'e  once  wrapped 
in  such  a  shroud  of  death  ! 

Here,  then,  in  conclusion,  are  the  evidences  that  the  de- 
posits of  the  Drift  are  not  due  to  continental  ice-sheets  : 

I.  The  present  ice-sheets  of  the  remote  north  create 
no  such  deposits  and  make  no  such  markings. 

II.  A  vast  continental  elevation  of  land-surfaces  at 
the  north  was  necessary  for  the  ice  to  slide  down,  and 
this  did  not  exist. 

III.  The  ice-sheet,  if  it  made  the  Drift  markings,  must 
have  scored  the  rocks  going  up-hill,  while  it  did  not  score 
them  going  down-hill. 

IV.  If  the  cold  formed  the  ice  and  the  ice  formed  the 
Drift,  why  is  there  no  Drift  in  the  coldest  regions  of  the 
earth,  where  there  must  have  been  ice  ? 

V.  Continental  ice-belts,  reaching  to  40°  of  latitude, 
would  have  exterminated  all  tropical  vegetation.  It  was 
not  exterminated,  therefore  such  ice-sheets  could  not 
have  existed. 

VI.  The  Drift  is  found  in  the  equatorial  regions  of 
the  world.  If  it  was  produced  by  an  ice-sheet  in  those 
regions,  all  pre-glacial  forms  of  life  must  have  perished  ; 
but  tbey  did  not  perish  ;  therefore  the  ice-sheet  could  not 

*  "Popular  Science  Monthly,"  April,  187-i,  p.  646. 


42  THE  DRIFT. 

have  coTered  these  regions,  and  could  not  have  produced 
the  drift-deposits  there  found. 

In  brief,  the  Drift  is  not  found  where  ice  must  have 
been,  and  is  found  where  ice  could  not  have  been  ;  the 
conclusion,  therefore,  is  irresistible  that  the  Drift  is  not 
due  to  ice. 


THE  DRIFT  A    GIGANTIC   CATASTROPHE.         43 


CHAPTER  VII. 

THE  DRIFT  A   GIGANTIC  CATASTROPHE. 

In  the  first  place,  the  Drift  fell  upon  a  fair  and  lovely 
world,  a  world  far  better  adapted  to  give  happiness  to  its 
inhabitants  than  this  storm-tossed  planet  on  which  we 
now  live,  with  its  endless  battle  between  heat  and  cold, 
between  sun  and  ice. 

The  pre-glacial  world  was  a  garden,  a  paradise  ;  not 
excessively  warm  at  the  equator,  and  yet  with  so  mild  and 
equable  a  climate  that  the  plants  we  now  call  tropical 
flourished  within  the  present  Arctic  Circle.  If  some  fu- 
ture daring  navigator  reaches  the  north  pole  and  finds 
solid  land  there,  he  will  probably  discover  in  the  rocks  at 
his  feet  the  fossil  remains  of  the  oranges  and  bananas  of 
the  pre-glacial  age. 

That  the  reader  may  not  think  this  an  extravagant 
statement,  let  me  cite  a  few  authorities. 

A  recent  writer  says  : 

"  This  was,  indeed,  for  America,  the  golden  age  of 
animals  and  plants,  and  in  all  respects  but  one — the  ab- 
sence of  man — the  country  was  more  interesting  and  pict- 
uresque than  now.  We  must  imagine,  therefore,  that 
the  hills  and  valleys  about  the  present  site  of  New  York 
were  covered  with  noble  trees,  and  a  dense  undergrowth 
of  species,  for  the  most  part  different  from  those  now 
living  there  ;  and  that  these  were  the  homes  and  feeding- 
grounds  of  many  kinds  of  quadrupeds  and  birds,  which 
have  long  since  become  extinct.  The  broad  plain  which 
sloped  gently  seaward  from  the  highlands  must  have  been 


44  THE  DRIFT. 

covered  with  a  sub-tropical  forest  of  giant  trees  and  tan- 
gled vines  teeming  Avith  animal  life.  This  state  of  things 
doubtless  continued  through  many  thousands  of  years, 
but  ultimately  a  change  came  over  the  fair  face  of  Nature 
more  complete  and  terrible  than  we  have  language  to  de- 
scribe." * 

Another  says  : 

"At  the  close  of  the  Tertiary  age,  which  ends  the 
long  series  of  geological  epochs  previous  to  the  Quater- 
nary, the  landscape  of  Europe  had,  in  the  main,  assumed 
its  modern  appearance.  The  middle  era  of  this  age — the 
Miocene — was  characterized  by  tropical  plants,  a  varied 
and  imposing  fauna,  and  a  genial  climate,  so  extended  as 
to  nourish  forests  of  beeches,  maples,  icalnuts,  poplars,  and 
magnoUas  in  Greenland  and  Sjntzbergen,  while  an  exotic 
vegetation  hid  the  exuberant  valleys  of  England."  f 

Dr.  Dawson  says  : 

"This  delightful  climate  was  not  confined  to  the  pres- 
ent temperate  or  tropical  regions.  It  extended  to  the 
very  shores  of  the  Arctic  Sea.  In  Horth  Greenland,  at 
Atane-Kerdluk,  in  latitude  70°  north,  at  an  elevation  of 
more  than  a  thousand  feet  above  the  sea,  were  found  the 
remains  of  beeches,  oaks,  pines,  poplars,  maples,  tocdniits, 
mc(g7iolias,  limes.,  and  vines.  The  remains  of  similar 
plants  were  found  in  Spitzbergen,  in  latitude  78°  5G'."  J 

Dr.  Dawson  continues  : 

"  Was  the  Miocene  period  on  the  whole  a  better  age 
of  the  world  than  that  in  which  we  live  ?  In  some  re- 
spects it  was.  Obviously,  there  was  in  the  northern 
hemisphere  a  vast  surface  of  land  under  a  mild  and  equa- 
ble climate,  and  clothed  with  a  rich  and  varied  vegetation. 
Had  we  lived  in  the  Miocene  we  might  have  sat  under 
our  own  vine  and  fig-tree  equally  in  Greenland  and  Spitz- 
bergen and  in  those  more  southern  climes  to  which  this 

*  "  Popular  Science  Monthly,"  October,  1SY8,  p.  648. 

f  L.  P.  Gratacap,  in  "  American  Antiquarian,"  July,  1881,  p.  280. 

X  Dawson,  "  Earth  and  Man,"  p.  261. 


THE  DRIFT  A    GIGANTIC   CATASTROPHE.  45 

privilege  is  now  restricted.  .  .  .  Some  reasons  have  been 
adduced  for  the  belief  that  in  the  Miocene  and  Eocene 
there  were  intervals  of  cold  climate  ;  but  the  evidence  of 
this  may  be  merely  local  and  exceptional,  and  does  not 
interfere  with  the  broad  characteristics  of  the  age."* 

Sir  Edward  Belcher  brought  away  from  the  dreary 
shores  of  Wellington  Channel  (latitude  75°  32'  north)  por- 
tions of  a  tree  which  thei'e  can  be  no  doubt  whatever  had 
actually  grown  where  he  found  it.  The  roots  were  in 
place,  in  a  frozen  mass  of  earth,  the  stump  standing  up- 
right where  it  was  probably  overtaken  by  the  great  win- 
ter.f  Trees  have  been  found,  hi  situ,  on  Prince  Pat- 
rick's Island,  in  latitude  76°  12'  north,  four  feet  in  cir- 
cumference. They  were  so  old  that  the  wood  had  lost  its 
combustible  quality,  and  refused  to  burn.  Mr.  Geikie 
thinks  that  it  is  possible  these  trees  were  pre-glacial,  and 
belonged  to  the  Miocene  age.  They  may  have  been  the 
remnants  of  the  great  forests  which  clothed  that  far  north- 
ern region  when  the  so-called  glacial  age  came  on  and 
brought  the  Drift. 

We  shall  see  hereafter  that  man,  possibly  civilized 
man,  dwelt  in  this  fair  and  glorious  world — this  world 
that  knew  no  frost,  no  cold,  no  ice,  no  snow  ;  that  he  had 
dwelt  in  it  for  thousands  of  years  ;  that  he  witnessed  the 
appalling  and  sudden  calamity  which  fell  upon  it  ;  and 
that  he  has  preserved  the  memory  of  this  catastrophe  to 
the  present  day,  in  a  multitude  of  myths  and  legends 
scattered  all  over  the  face  of  the  habitable  earth. 

But  was  it  sudden  ?     Was  it  a  catastrophe  ? 

Again  I  call  the  witnesses  to  the  stand,  for  I  ask  you, 
good  reader,  to  accept  nothing  that  is  not  proved. 

In  the  first  place,  was  it  sudden  ? 

*  "  Earth  and  Man,"  p.  264. 

f  "  The  Last  of  the  Arctic  Voyages,"  vol.  i,  p.  380. 


46  THE  DRIFT. 

One  writer  says  : 

"  The  glacial  action,  in  the  opinion  of  the  land-glacial- 
ists,  was  limited  to  a  definite  pe7'wd,  and  operated  simid- 
taneously  over  a  vast  area."  * 

And  again  : 

"  The  drift  was  accumulated  where  it  is  by  some  vio- 
lent action."  f 

Louis  Figuier  says  : 

"  The  two  cataclysms  of  which  we  have  spoken  sur- 
prised Europe  at  the  moment  of  the  development  of  an 
important  creation.  The  whole  scope  of  animated  nature, 
the  evolution  of  animals,  was  suddenly  arrested  in  that 
part  of  our  hemisphere  over  which  these  gigantic  convul- 
sions spread,  followed  by  the  brief  but  sudden  submersion 
of  entire  continents.  Organic  life  had  scarcely  recovered 
from  the  violent  shock,  when  a  second,  and  perhaps  se- 
verer blow  assailed  it.  The  northern  and. central  parts  of 
Europe,  the  vast  countries  which  extend  from  Scandinavia 
to  the  Mediterranean  and  the  Danube,  were  visited  by  a 
period  of  sudden  and  severe  cold  ;  the  temperature  of  the 
polar  regions  seized  them.  The  plains  of  Europe,  but 
now  ornamented  by  the  luxurious  vegetation  developed 
by  the  heat  of  a  burning  climate,  the  boundless  pastures 
on  which  herds  of  great  elephants,  the  active  horse,  the  ro- 
bust hippopotamus,  and  great  carnivorous  animals  grazed 
and  roamed,  became  covered  with  a  mantle  of  ice  and 
snow."  X 

M.  Ch.  Martins  says  : 

"The  most  violent  convulsions  of  the  solid  and  liquid 
elements  appear  to  have  been  themselves  only  the  effects 
due  to  a  cause  much  more  powerful  than  the  mere  expan- 
sion of  the  pyrosphere  ;  and  it  is  necessary  to  recur,  in 
order  to  explain  them,  to  some  new  and  bolder  hypothesis 
than  has  yet  been  hazarded.     Some  philosophers  have  be- 

*  "American  Cyclopaedia,"  vol.  vi,  p.  114.        f  Ibid.,  vol.  vi,  p.  111. 
X  "  The  World  before  the  Deluge,"  p.  435. 


THE  DRIFT  A    GIGANTIC   CATASTROPHE.  47 

lief  in  an  astronomical  revolution  which  may  have  over- 
taken our  globe  in  the  first  age  of  its  formation,  and  have 
modified  its  position  in  relation  to  the  sun.  They  admit 
that  the  poles  have  not  always  been  as  they  are  now,  and 
that  so)ne  terrible  shock  displaced  them,  changing  at  the 
same  time  the  inclination  of  the  axis  of  the  rotation  of 
the  earth."  * 

Louis  Figuier  says  : 

"  We  can  not  doubt,  after  such  testimony,  of  the  exist- 
ence, in  the  frozen  north,  of  the  almost  entire  remains  of 
the  mammoth.  The  animals  seem  to  have  perished  sud- 
denly ;  enveloped  in  ice  at  the  moment  of  their  death,  their 
bodies  have  been  preserved  from  decomposition  by  the 
continual  action  of  the  cold."  f 

Cuvier  says,  speaking  of  the  bodies  of  the  quadru- 
peds which  the  ice  had  seized,  and  which  have  been  pre- 
served, with  their  hair,  flesh,  and  skin,  down  to  our  own 
times  : 

"  If  they  had  not  been  frozen  as  soon  as  killed,  putre- 
faction would  have  decomposed  them  ;  and,  on  the  other 
hand,  this  eternal  frost  could  not  have  previously  pre- 
vailed in  the  place  where  they  died,  for  they  could  not 
have  lived  in  such  a  temperature.  It  was,  therefore,  at 
the  same  instant  v:hen  these  animals  perished  that  the 
country  they  inhabited  teas  rendered  glacial.  These  events 
must  have  been  sudden,  instantaneous,  and  xoithout  any 
gradation.''''  \ 

There  is  abundant  evidence  that  the  Drift  fell  upon  a 
land  covered  with  forests,  and  that  the  trunks  of  the  trees 
were  swept  into  the  mass  of  clay  and  gravel,  where  they 
are  preserved  to  this  day. 

Mr.  Whittlesey  gives  an  account  of  a  log  found  forty 
feet  beloio  the  surface,  in   a  bed  of  blue  clay,  resting 

*  "  The  World  before  the  Deluge,"  p.  463.  f  Ibid.,  p.  396. 

X  "  Ossements  fossiles,  Discours  sur  les  Revolutions  du  Globe." 


48  THE  DRIFT. 

upon  the  "hard-pan"  or  "till,"  in  a  ^ell  dug  at  Colum- 
bia, Ohio.* 

At  Bloomington,  Illinois,  pieces  of  wood  were  found 
one  hundred  and  ticenty -three  feet  below  the  surface,  in 
sinking  a  shaft. f 

And  it  is  a  very  remarkable  fact  that  none  of  these 
Dlinois  clays  contain  any  fossils. \ 

The  inference,  therefore,  is  irresistible  that  the  clay, 
thus  unfossiliferous,  fell  upon  and  inclosed  the  trees 
while  they  were  yet  growing. 

These  facts  alone  would  dispose  of  the  theory  that  the 
Drift  was  dejDOsited  upon  lands  already  covered  with 
water.  It  is  evident,  on  the  contrary,  that  it  was  dry 
land,  inhabited  land,  land  embowered  in  forests. 

On  top  of  the  Norwich  crag,  in  England,  are  found 
the  remains  of  an  ancient  forest,  "  showing  stumps  of 
trees  standing  erect  with  theu-  roots  penetrating  an  an- 
cient soil."  *  In  this  soil  occur  the  remains  of  many  ex- 
tinct species  of  animals,  together  with  those  of  others 
still  living  ;  among  these  may  be  mentioned  the  hippo- 
potamus, three  species  of  elephant,  the  mammoths,  rhi- 
noceros, bear,  horse,  Irish  elk,  etc. 

In  Ireland  remains  of  trees  have  been  found  in  sand- 
beds  below  the  till.JI 

Dr.  Dawson  found  a  hardened  peaty  bed  under  the 
bowlder-clay,  in  Canada,  which  "  contained  many  small 
roots  and  branches,  apparently  of  coniferous  trees  allied 
to  the  spruces."  ^     Mr.  C.  Whittlesey  refers  to  decayed 

*  "  Smithsonian  Contributions,"  vol.  xv. 
f  "  Geology  of  Illinois,"  vol.  iv,  p.  179. 
X  "  The  Great  Ice  Age,"  p.  3S7. 

*  Ibid.,  p.  340. 

I  "  Dublin  Quarterly  Journal  of  Science,"  vol.  vi,  p.  249. 
^  "  Acadian  Geology,"  p.  63. 


THE  DRIFT  A    GIGANTIC   CATASTROPHE.  49 

leaves  and  remains  of  the  elephant  and  mastodon  found 
below  and  in  the  drift  in  America.* 

"  The  remains  of  the  mastodon,  rhinoceros,  hippo- 
potamus, and  elephant  are  found  in  the  pre-glacial  beds 
of  Italy."  t 

These  animals  were  slaughtered  outright,  and  so  sud- 
denly that  few  escaped  : 

Admiral  Wrangel  tells  us  that  the  remains  of  ele- 
phants, rhinoceroses,  etc.,  are  heaped  up  in  such  quantities 
in  certain  parts  of  Siberia  that  "  he  and  his  men  climbed 
over  ridges  and  mounds  composed  entirely  of  their 
bones."  J 

We  have  seen  that  the  Drift  itself  has  all  the  appear- 
ance of  having  been  the  product  of  some  sudden  catas- 
trophe : 

"  Stones  and  bowlders  alike  are  scattered  higgledy- 
piggledy,  pell-mell,  through  the  clay,  so  as  to  give  it  a 
highly  confused  and  tumultuous  appearance^ 

Another  writer  says  : 

"  In  the  mass  of  the  '  till '  itself  fossils  sometimes,  but 
very  rarely,  occur.  Tusks  of  the  mammoth,  reindeer-ant- 
lers, 2in(\.  fragments  q/"  tcooc?  have  from  time  to  time  been 
discovered.  They  almost  invariably  afford  marks  of  hav- 
ing been  subjected  to  the  same  action  as  the  stones  and 
bowlders  by  which  they  are  surrounded."  * 

Another  says  : 

"  Logs  and  fragments  of  wood  are  often  got  at  great 
depths  in  the  buried  gorges."  1| 

*  "Smithsonian  Contributions,"  vol.  xv. 
f  "  The  Great  Ice  Age,"  p.  492. 
X  Agassiz,  "  Geological  Sketches,"  p.  209. 
«  "  The  Great  Ice  Age,"  p.  150. 

I  "  Illustrations  of  Surface  Geology,"  "  Smithsonian  Contributions." 
4 


50  THE  DRIFT. 

Mr.  Geikie  says  : 

"  Below  a  deposit  of  till,  at  Woodhill  Quarry,  near  Kil- 
maurs,  in  Ayrshire  (Scotland),  the  remains  of  mammoths 
and  reindeer  and  certain  marine  shells  have  several  times 
been  detected  during  the  quarrying  oi3erations.  .  .  .  Two 
elephant-tusks  were  got  at  a  depth  of  seventeen  and  a  half 
feet  from  the  surface.  .  .  .  The  mammalian  remains,  ob- 
tained from  this  quarry,  occurred  in  a  j^eaty  layer  between 
two  thin  beds  of  sand  and  gravel  which  lay  beneath  a 
mass  of  '  till,'  and  rested  directly  on  the  sandstone  rock.''''  * 

And  again  : 

"Remains  of  the  mammoth  have  been  met  with  at 
Chapelhall,  near  Airdi'ie,  where  they  occurred  in  a  bed  of 
laminated  sand,  ?m(:?e?'/y«;?^ 'till.'  Reindeer-antlers  have 
also  been  discovered  in  other  localities,  as  in  the  valley 
of  the  Endrick,  about  four  miles  from  Loch  Lomond, 
where  an  antler  was  found  associated  with  marine  shells, 
near  the  bottom  of  a  bed  of  blue  clay,  and  close  to  the 
underlying  rock — the  blue  clay  being  covered  with  twelve 
feet  of  tough,  stony  clay."f 

Professor  "Winchell  says  : 

"  Buried  tree-trunks  are  often  exhumed  from  the  gla- 
cial drift  at  a  depth  of  from  twenty  to  sixty  feet  from  the 
surface.  Dr.  Locke  has  published  an  account  of  a  mass 
of  buried  drift-wood  at  Salem,  Ohio,  forty-three  feet  below 
the  surface,  imbedded  in  ancient  mud.  The  museum  of 
the  University  of  Michigan  contains  several  fragments  of 
well-preserved  tree-trunks  exhumed  from  wells  in  the 
vicinity  of  Ann  Arbor.  Such  occurrences  are  by  no 
means  uncommon.  The  encroachments  of  the  waves  uj)on 
the  shores  of  the  Great  Lakes  reveal  whole  forests  of  the 
buried  trunks  of  the  white  cedar."  J 

These  citations  place  it  beyond  question  that  the  Drift 
came  suddenly  upon  the  world,  slaughtering  the  animals, 

*  "  The  Great  Ice  Age,"  p.  149.  f  Ibid.,  p.  150. 

X  Winchell,  "  Sketches  of  Creation,"  p.  259. 


THE  DRIFT  A    GIGANTIC   CATASTROPHE.  51 

breaking  up  the  forests,  and  overwhelming  the  trunks  and 
branches  of  the  trees  in  its  masses  of  debris. 

Let  us  turn  to  the  next  question  :  Was  it  an  extraor- 
dinary event,  a  world-shaking  cataclysm  ? 

The  answer  to  this  question  is  plain  :  The  Drift  marks 
probably  the  most  awful  convulsion  and  catastrophe  that 
has  ever  fallen  upon  the  globe.  The  deposit  of  these 
continental  masses  of  clay,  sand,  and  gravel  was  but  one 
of  the  features  of  the  apalling  event.  In  addition  to  this 
the  earth  at  the  same  time  was  cleft  with  great  cracks  or 
fissures,  which  reached  down  through  many  miles  of  the 
planet's  crust  to  the  central  fires  and  released  the  boiling 
rocks  imprisoned  in  its  bosom,  and  these  poured  to  the 
surface,  as  igneous,  intrusive,  or  trap-rocks.  Where  the 
great  breaks  were  not  deep  enough  to  reach  the  central 
fires,  they  left  mighty  fissures  in  the  surface,  which,  in 
the  Scandinavian  regions,  are  known  Sisjiords,  and  which 
constitute  a  striking  feature  of  the  scenery  of  these  north- 
ern lands  ;  they  are  great  canals — hewn,  as  it  were,  in  the 
rock — with  high  Avails  penetrating  from  the  sea  far  into 
the  interior  of  the  land.  They  are  found  in  Great  Brit- 
ain, Maine,  Nova  Scotia,  Labrador,  Greenland,  and  on  the 
Western  coast  of  North  America. 

David  Dale  Owen  tells  us  that  the  outbui-st  of  trap- 
rock  at  the  Dalles  of  the  St.  Croix  came  up  through,  open 
fissures,  breaking  the  continuity  of  strata,  without  tilting 
them  into  inclined  planes."  *  It  would  appear  as  if  the 
earth,  in  the  first  place,  cracked  into  deep  clefts,  and  the 
igneous  matter  within  took  advantage  of  these  breaks  to 
rise  to  the  surface.  It  caught  masses  of  the  sandstone 
in  its  midst  and  hardened  around  them. 

These  great  clefts  seem  to  be,  as  Owen  says,  "lines 

*  "  Geological  Survey  of  Wisconsin,  Iowa,  and  Minnesota,"  p.  142. 


52  THE  DRIFT. 

radiating  soutliwestwardly  from  Lake  Superior,  as  if  that 
was  the  seat  of  the  disturbance  which  caused  them."  * 

Moreover,  when  we  come  to  examine  the  face  of  the 
rocks  on  which  the  Drift  came,  we  do  not  find  them  merely- 
smoothed  and  ground  down,  as  we  might  suppose  a  great, 
heavy  mass  of  ice  moving  slowly  over  them  would  leave 
them.  There  was  something  more  than  this.  There  was 
something,  (whatever  it  was,)  that  fell  upon  them  with 
awful  force  and  literally  smashed  them,  pounding,  beat- 
ing, pulverizing  them,  and  turning  one  layer  of  mighty 
rock  over  upon  another,  and  scattering  them  in  the  wild- 
est confusion.  We  can  not  conceive  of  anything  terres- 
trial that,  let  loose  upon  the  bare  rocks  to-day,  would  or 
could  produce  such  results. 

Geikie  says  : 

"  When  the  'till '  is  removed  from  the  underlying  rocks, 
these  almost  invariably  show  either  a  well-smoothed,  pol- 
ished, and  striated  surface,  or  else  a  highly  confused, 
broken,  and  smashed  appearance."  f 

Gratacap  says  : 

" '  Crushed  ledges^  designate  those  plicated,  overthrown, 
or  curved  exposures  where  parallel  rocks,  as  talcose  schist, 
usually  vertical,  are  bent  and  fractured,  as  if  by  a  maul- 
like  force,  battering  them  from  above.  The  strata  are 
oftentimes  tumbled  over  upon  a  cliff-side  like  a  row  of 
books,  and  rest  upon  heaps  of  fragments  broken  away  by 
the  strain  upon  the  bottom  layers,  or  crushed  off  from 
their  exposed  layers."  \ 

The  Rev.  O.  Fisher,  F.  G.  S.,  says  he 

"Finds  the  covering  beds  to  consist  of  two  members 
— a  lower  one,  entirely  destitute  of  organic  remains,  and 

*  "  Geological  Survey  of  Wisconsin,  Iowa,  and  Minnesota,"  p.  147. 

f  "  The  Great  Ice  Age,"  p.  1Z. 

X  "Popular  Science  Monthly,"  January,  18/8,  p.  326. 


THE  DRIFT  A    GIGANTIC  CATASTROPHE.  53 

generally  unstratified,  wbieh  has  often  been  forcibly  ix- 
DEXTED  into  the  bed  beneath  it,  sometimes  exhibiting  slick- 
ensides  at  the  jmiction.  There  is  evidence  of  this  lower 
member  having  been  pushed  or  dragged  over  the  surface, 
from  higher  to  lower  levels,  in  a  plastic  condition  /  on 
which  account  he  has  named  it  'The  Trail'."* 

Now,  all  these  details  are  incompatible  with  the  idea 
of  ice-action.  "NVhat  condition  of  ice  can  be  imagined 
that  would  smash  rocks,  that  would  beat  them  like  a 
maul,  that  would  indent  them  ? 

And  when  we  pass  from  the  underlying  rocks  to  the 
"  till "  itself,  we  find  the  evidences  of  tremendous  force 
exerted  in  the  wildest  and  most  tumultuous  manner. 

When  the  clay  and  stones  were  being  deposited  on 
those  crushed  and  pounded  rocks,  they  seem  to  have 
picked  up  the  detritus  of  the  earth  in  great  masses,  and 
whirled  it  wildly  in  among  their  own  material,  and  de- 
posited it  in  what  are  called  "the  intercalated  beds."  It 
would  seem  as  if  cyclonic  winds  had  been  at  work  among 
the  mass.  While  the  "  till "  itself  is  devoid  of  fossils, 
"the  intercalated  beds "  often  contain  them.  Whatever 
was  in  or  on  the  soil  was  seized  upon,  carried  up  into  the 
air,  then  cast  down,  and  mingled  among  the  "  till." 

James  Geikie  says,  speaking  of  these  intercalated 
beds  : 

"  They  are  twisted,  bent,  crumpled,  and  confused  ofte7% 
in  the  tcildest  manner.  Layers  of  clay,  sand,  and  gravel, 
which  were  probably  deposited  in  a  nearly  horizontal 
plane,  are  puckered  into  folds  and  sharply  curved  into 
vertical  positions.  I  have  seen  whole  beds  of  sand  and 
clay  which  had  all  the  appearance  of  having  been  pushed 
forward  bodily  for  some  distance,  the  bedding  assuming 
the  most  fantastic  appearance.  .  .  .  The  intercalated  beds 
are  everywhere  cut  through  by  the  overlying  '  till,'  and 

*  "  Journal  of  the  Geological  Society  and  Geological  Magazine." 


54 


THE  DRIFT. 


large  portions  have  been  carried  away.  .  .  .  They  form 
but  a  small  fraction  of  the  drift-deposits."  * 

In  the  accompanying  cut  we  have  one  of  these  sand 
(s)  and  clay  {c)  jDatches,  embosomed  in  the  "  till,"  f  and  f. 


Steatifled  Beds  ys  Till,  Leithen  Water,  Peeblesshire,  Scotland. 

And  again,  the  same  writer  says  : 

"The  intercalated  beds  are  remarkable  for  having 
yielded  an  imperfect  skull  of  the  great  extinct  ox  {Bos 
primifjenius),  and  remains  of  the  Irish  elk  or  deer,  and 
the  horse,  together  with  layers  of  peaty  matter."  f 

Several  of  our  foremost  scientists  see  in  the  phenomena 
of  the  Drift  the  evidences  of  a  cataclysm  of  some  sort. 

Sir  John  Lubbock  |  gives  the  following  representa- 
tion of  a  section  of  the  Drift  at  Joinville,  France,  con- 


.-,00.- 


Section  at  Jodtville 


*  "The  Great  Ice  Age,"  p.  149.  \  Ibid.,  p.  149. 

X  "Prehistoric  Times,"  p.  370. 


THE  DRIFT  A    GIGANTIC   CATASTROPHE.  55 

taining  an  immense  sandstone  block,  eight  feet  six  inches 
in  length,  with  a  width  of  two  feet  eight  inches,  and  a 
thickness  of  three  feet  four  inches. 

Discussing  the  subject,  Mr.  Lubbock  says  : 

"  We  must  feel  that  a  body  of  water,  with  power  to 
move  such  masses  as  these,  must  have  been  very  different 
from  any  floods  now  occurring  in  those  valleys,  and  might 
well  deserve  the  name  of  a  cataclysm.  .  .  .  But  a  flood 
which  could  bring  down  so  great  a  mass  would  certainly 
have  swept  away  the  comparatively  light  and  movable 
gravel  below.  We  can  not,  therefore,  account  for  the 
phenomena  by  aqueous  action,  because  a  flood  which 
would  deposit  the  sandstone  blocks  would  remove  the 
underlying  gravel,  and  a  flood  which  woixld  deposit  the 
gravel  would  not  remove  the  blocks.  The  Deus  ex  ma- 
chind  has  not  only  been  called  in  most  unnecessarily,  but 
when  examined  turns  out  to  be  but  an  idol,  after  all." 

Sir  John  thinks  that  floating  ice  might  have  dropped 
these  blocks  ;  but  then,  on  the  other  hand,  M.  C.  d'Or- 
bigny  observes  that  all  the  fossils  found  in  these  beds 
belong  to  fresh- water  or  land  animals.  The  sea  has  had 
nothing  to  do  with  them.  And  D'Orbigny  thinks  the 
Drift  came  from  cataclysms. 

M.  Boucher  de  Perthes,  the  first  and  most  exhaustive 
investigator  of  these  deposits,  has  always  been  of  opinion 
that  the  drift-gravels  of  France  were  deposited  by  violent 
cataclysms.* 

This  view  seems  to  be  confirmed  by  the  fact  that  the 
gravel-beds  in  which  these  remains  of  man  and  extinct 
animals  are  found  lie  at  an  elevation  of  from  eighty  to  tioo 
hundred  feet  above  the  present  water-levels  of  the  valleys. 

Sir  John  Lubbock  says  : 

"  Our  second  difliculty  still  remains  —  namely,  the 
height  at  which  the  upper-level  gravels  stand  above  the 

*  "Mem.  Soc.  d'Em.  rAbbevillc,"  1S61,  p.  475. 


56  THE  DRIFT. 

present  water-line.     We  can  not  wonder  that  these  beds 
have  generally  been  attributed  to  violent  cataclysms."  * 

In  America,  in  Britain,  and  in  Europe,  the  glacial 
deposits  made  clean  work  of  nearly  all  animal  life.  The 
great  mammalia,  too  large  to  find  shelter  in  caverns,  were 
some  of  them  utterly  swept  away,  while  others  never 
afterward  returned  to  those  regions.  In  like  manner  pa- 
laeolithic man,  man  of  the  rude  and  unpolished  flint  imple- 
ments, the  contemporary  of  the  great  mammalia,  the  mam- 
moth, the  hippopotamus,  and  the  rhinoceros,  was  also 
stamped  out,  and  the  cave-deposits  of  Europe  show  that 
there  was  a  long  interval  before  he  reappeared  in  those 
regions.  The  same  forces,  whatever  they  were,  which 
"  smashed  "  and  "  pounded  "  and  "  contorted  "  the  surface 
of  the  earth,  crushed  man  and  his  gigantic  associates  out 
of  existence. f 

But  in  Siberia,  where,  as  we  have  seen,  some  of  the 
lai'ge  mammalia  were  caught  and  entombed  in  ice,  and 
preserved  even  to  our  own  day,  there  was  no  "  smashing  " 
and  "  crushing  "  of  the  earth,  and  many  escaped  the  snow- 
sheets,  and  their  posterity  survived  in  that  region  for  long 
ages  after  the  Glacial  period,  and  are  supposed  only  to 
have  disappeared  in  quite  recent  times.  In  fact,  within 
the  last  two  or  three  years  a  Russian  exile  declared  that 
he  had  seen  a  group  of  living  mammoths  in  a  wild  valley 
in  a  remote  portion  of  that  wilderness. 

These,  then,  good  reader,  to  recapitulate,  are  points 
that  seem  to  be  established  : 

I.  The  Drift  marked  a  world-convulsing  catastrophe. 
It  was  a  gigantic  and  terrible  event.  It  was  something 
quite  out  of  the  ordinary  course  of  Nature's  operations. 

II.  It  was  sudden  and  overwhelming. 

*  "Prehistoric  Times,"  p.  372.  f  "  The  Great  Ice  Age,"  p.  466. 


THE  DRIFT  A    GIGANTIC   CATASTROPHE.  57 

III.  It  fell  upon  land  areas,  much  like  our  own  in 
geographical  conformation  ;  a  forest-covered,  inhabited 
land  ;  a  glorious  land,  basking  in  perpetual  summer,  in 
the  midst  of  a  golden  age. 

Let  us  go  a  step  further. 


58  THE  DRIFT. 


CHAPTER  Yin. 

GREAT  HEAT  A  PREREQUISITE. 

Now,  it  will  be  observed  that  the  principal  theories 
assigned  for  the  Drift  go  upon  the  hypothesis  that  it 
was  produced  by  extraordinary  masses  of  ice — ice  as  ice- 
bergs, ice  as  glaciers,  or  ice  in  continental  sheets.  The 
scientists  admit  that  immediately  preceding  this  Glacial 
age  the  climate  was  mild  and  equable,  and  these  great 
formations  of  ice  did  not  exist.  But  none  of  them  pre- 
tend to  say  how  the  ice  came  or  what  caused  it.  Even 
Agassiz,  the  great  apostle  of  the  ice-origin  of  Drift,  is 
forced  to  confess  : 

"  We  have,  as  yet,  no  clew  to  the  source  of  this  great 
and  sudden  change  of  climate.  Various  suggestions  have 
been  made — among  others,  that  formerly  the  inclination 
of  the  earth's  axis  was  greater,  or  that  a  submersion  of 
the  continents  under  water  might  have  produced  a  decided 
increase  of  cold  ;  but  none  of  these  explanations  are  sat- 
isfactory, and  science  has  yet  to  find  any  cause  which  ac- 
counts for  all  the  phenomena  connected  with  it."  * 

Some  have  imagined  that  a  change  in  the  position  of 
the  earth's  axis  of  rotation,  due  to  the  elevation  of  ex- 
tensive mountain-tracts  between  the  poles  and  the  equator, 
might  have  caused  a  degree  of  cold  sufficient  to  produce 
the  phenomena  of  the  Drift ;  but  Geikie  says — 

"  It  has  been  demonstrated  that  the  protuberance  of 
the  earth  at  the  equator  so  vastly  exceeds  that  of  any 

*  "Geological  Sketches,"  p.  210. 


GREAT  HEAT  A   PREREQUISITE.  59 

possible  elevation  of  mountain-masses  between  the  equator 
and  the  poles,  that  any  slight  changes  which  may  have 
resulted  from  such  geological  causes  could  have  had  only 
an  infinitesimal  effect  upon  the  general  climate  of  the 
globe."  * 

Let  us  reason  together  : — 

The  ice,  say  the  glacialists,  caused  the  Drift.  What 
caused  the  ice  ?  Great  rains  and  snows,  they  say,  falling 
on  the  face  of  the  land.  Granted.  What  is  rain  in  the 
first  instance  ?  Vapor,  clouds.  Whence  are  the  clouds 
derived  ?  From  the  waters  of  the  earth,  principally  from 
the  oceans.  How  is  the  water  in  the  clouds  transferred 
to  the  clouds  from  the  seas  ?  By  evaporation.  What  is 
necessary  to  evaporation  ?     Seat. 

Here,  then,  is  the  sequence  : 

If  there  is  no  heat,  there  is  no  evaporation  ;  no  evap- 
oration, no  clouds  ;  no  clouds,  no  rain  ;  no  rain,  no  ice  ; 
no  ice,  no  Drift. 

But,  as  the  Glacial  age  meant  ice  on  a  stupendous 
scale,  then  it  must  have  been  preceded  by  heat  on  a  stu- 
pendous scale. 

Professor  Tyndall  asserts  that  the  ancient  glaciers 
indicate  the  action  of  heat  as  much  as  cold.     He  says  : 

"  Cold  will  not  produce  glaciers.  Tou  may  have  the 
bitterest  northeast  winds  here  in  London  throughout  the 
winter  without  a  single  flake  of  snow.  Cold  must  have 
the  fitting  object  to  operate  upon,  and  this  object — the 
aqueous  vapor  of  the  air — is  the  direct  product  of  heat. 
Let  us  put  this  glacier  question  in  another  form  :  the  la- 
tent heat  of  aqueous  vapor,  at  the  temperature  of  its  pro- 
duction in  the  tropics,  is  about  1,000°  Fahr.,  for  the  latent 
heat  augments  as  the  temi^erature  of  evaporation  descends. 
A  pound  of  water  thus  vaporized  at  the  equator  has  ab- 
sorbed one  thousand  times  the  quantity  of  heat  which 

*  "  The  Great  Ice  Age,"  p.  98. 


60  THE  DRIFT. 

would  raise  a  pound  of  the  liquid  one  degree  in  tempera- 
ture. ...  It  is  i^erfectly  manifest  that  by  weakening  the 
sun's  action,  either  through  a  defect  of  emission  or  by 
the  steeping  of  the  entire  solar  system  in  space  of  a  low 
temperature,  loe  should  he  cutting  off  the  glaciers  at  their 
source.''''  * 

Mr.  Croll  says  : 

"  Heat,  to  produce  evaporation,  is  just  as  essential  to 
the  accumulation  of  snow  and  ice  as  cold  to  produce  con- 
densation." f 

Sir  John  Lubbock  says  : 

"  Paradoxical  as  it  may  appear,  the  primary  cause  of 
the  Glacial  epoch  may  be,  after  all,  an  elevation  of  the 
temperature  in  the  trojncs,  causing  a  greater  amount  of 
evaporation  in  the  equatorial  regions,  and  consequently  a 
greater  supply  of  the  raw  material  of  snow  in  the  temper- 
ate regions  during  the  winter  months."  J 

So  necessary  did  it  appear  that  heat  must  have  come 
from  some  source  to  vaporize  all  this  vast  quantity  of 
water,  that  one  gentleman,  Professor  Frankland,*  sug- 
gested that  the  ocean  must  have  been  rendered  hot  by  the 
internal  fires  of  the  earth,  and  thus  the  water  was  sent  up 
in  clouds  to  fall  in  ice  and  snow  ;  but  Sir  John  Lubbock 
disposes  of  this  theory  by  showing  that  the  fauna  of  the 
seas  during  the  Glacial  period  possessed  an  Arctic  charac- 
ter. We  can  not  conceive  of  Greenland  shells  and  fish  and 
animals  thriving  in  an  ocean  nearly  at  the  boiling-point. 

A  writer  in  "  The  Popular  Science  Monthly  "  ||  says  : 

"  These  evidences  of  vast  accumulations  of  ice  and 
snow  on  the  borders  of  the  Atlantic  have  led  some  theo- 

*  "  Heat  considered  as  a  Mode  of  Motion,"  p.  192. 
f  "  Climate  and  Time,"  p.  '74. 

X  "  Preliistoric  Times,"  p.  401. 

*  "  Philosophical  Magazine,"  1864,  p.  328. 
II  July,  1876,  p.  288. 


GREAT  HEAT  A   PREREQUISITE.  61 

rists  to  suppose  that  the  Ice  period  was  attended,  if  not  in 
part  caused,  by  a  far  more  abundant  evajDoration  f i*om  the 
surface  of  the  Atlantic  than  takes  place  at  present  ;  and 
it  has  even  been  conjectured  that  submarine  volcanoes  in 
the  tropics  might  have  loaded  the  atmosphere  with  an  un- 
usual amount  of  moisture.  This  speculation  seems  to  me, 
however,  both  improbable  and  superfluous  ;  improbable, 
because  no  traces  of  any  such  cataclysm  have  been  dis- 
covered, and  it  is  more  than  doubtful  whether  the  gener- 
ation of  steam  in  the  tropics,  however  large  the  quantity, 
would  produce  glaciation  of  the  polar  regions.  The  as- 
cent of  steam  and  heated  air  loaded  with  vapor  to  the 
altitude  of  refrigeration  would,  as  it  seems  to  me,  result 
in  the  rapid  radiation  of  the  heat  into  space,  and  the  local 
precipitation  of  unusual  quantities  of  rain  ;  and  the  eflPect 
of  such  a  catastrophe  would  be  slowly  propagated  and 
feebly  felt  in  the  Arctic  and  Antarctic  regions. 

When  we  consider  the  magnitude  of  the  ice-sheets 
which,  it  is  claimed  by  the  glacialists,  covered  the  conti- 
nents during  the  Drift  age,  it  becomes  evident  that  a 
vast  proportion  of  the  waters  of  the  ocean  must  have  been 
evaporated  and  carried  into  the  air,  and  thence  cast  down 
as  snow  and  rain.  Mr.  Thomas  Belt,  in  a  recent  number 
of  the  "  Quarterly  Journal  of  Science,"  argues  that  the 
formation  of  ice-sheets  at  the  poles  must  have  loicered  the 
level  of  the  oceans  of  the  %corld  tioo  thousand  feet ! 

The  mathematician  can  figure  it  out  for  himself  :  Take 
the  area  of  the  continents  down  to,  say,  latitude  40°, 
on  both  sides  of  the  equator  ;  suppose  this  area  to  be  cov- 
ered by  an  ice-sheet  averaging,  say,  two  miles  in  thickness  ; 
reduce  this  mass  of  ice  to  cubic  feet  of  water,  and  esti- 
mate what  proportion  of  the  ocean  would  be  required  to 
be  vaporized  to  create  it.  Calculated  upon  any  basis,  and 
it  follows  that  the  level  of  the  ocean  must  have  been 
greatly  lowered. 

What  a  vast,  inconceivable  accession  of  heat  to  our 


62  THE  DRIFT. 

atmosphere  was  necessary  to  lift  this  gigantic  layer  of 
ocean-water  out  of  its  bed  and  into  the  clouds  ! 

The  ice,  then,  was  not  the  cause  of  the  cataclysm ;  it 
was  simj)ly  one  of  the  secondary  consequences. 

We  must  look,  then,  behind  the  ice-age  for  some  cause 
that  would  prodigiously  increase  the  heat  of  our  atmos- 
phere, and,  when  we  have  found  that,  we  shall  have  dis- 
covered the  cause  of  the  drift-deposits  as  well  as  of  the 
ice. 

The  solution  of  the  whole  stupendous  problem  is, 
therefore,  heat,  not  cold. 


A    COMET  CAUSED   THE  DRIFT.  63 


PART   II. 

l)e   Qlomct. 


CHAPTER    I. 

A  COMET  CAUSED   TEE  DRIFT. 

Now,  good  reader,  we  have  reasoned  together  up  to 
this  point.  To  be  sure,  I  have  done  most  of  the  talking, 
while  you  have  indulged  in  what  the  Rev.  Sydney  Smith 
called,  speaking  of  Lord  Macaulay,  "brilliant  flashes  of 
silence." 

But  I  trust  we  agree  thus  far  that  neither  water  nor 
ice  caused  the  Drift.  Water  and  ice  were  doubtless  asso- 
ciated with  it,  but  neither  produced  it. 

What,  now,  are  the  elements  of  the  problem  to  be 
solved  ? 

First,  we  are  to  find  something  that  instantaneously 
increased  to  a  vast  extent  the  heat  of  our  planet,  vapor- 
ized the  seas,  and  furnished  material  for  deluges  of  rain, 
and  great  storms  of  snow,  and  accumulations  of  ice  north 
and  south  of  the  equator  and  in  the  high  mountains. 

Secondly,  we  are  to  find  something  that,  coming  from 
above,  smashed,  pounded,  and  crushed  "  as  with  a  maul," 
and  rooted  up  as  with  a  plow,  the  gigantic  rocks  of  the 
surface,  and  scattered  them  for  hundreds  of  miles  from 
their  original  location. 


64  THE  COMET. 

Thirdly,  we  are  to  find  something  which  brought  to 
the  planet  vast,  incalculable  masses  of  clay  and  gravel, 
which  did  not  contain  any  of  the  earth's  fossils  ;  which, 
like  the  witches  of  Macbeth, 

"  Look  not  like  th'  inhabitants  of  earth, 
And  yet  are  on  it ; " 

which  are  marked  after  a  fashion  which  can  not  be  found 
anywhere  else  on  earth  ;  jjroduced  in  a  laboratory  which 
has  not  yet  been  discovered  on  the  planet. 

Fourthly,  we  are  to  find  something  that  would  jdi'o- 
duce  cyclonic  convulsions  upon  a  scale  for  which  the  or- 
dinary operations  of  nature  furnish  us  no  parallel. 

Fifthly,  we  are  to  find  some  external  force  so  mighty 
that  it  would  crack  the  crust  of  the  globe  like  an  egg- 
shell, lining  its  surface  with  great  rents  and  seams, 
through  which  the  molten  interior  boiled  up  to  the  light. 

Would  a  comet  meet  all  these  prerequisites  ? 

I  think  it  would. 

Let  us  proceed  in  regular  order. 


WHAT  IS  A    COMET?  65 


CHAPTER  II. 

WHAT   IS    A     COMETf 

Ix  the  first  place,  are  comets  composed  of  solid,  liquid, 
or  gaseous  substances  ?  Are  they  something,  or  the  next 
thing  to  nothing  ? 

It  has  been  supposed  bj  some  that  they  are  made  of 
the  most  attenuated  gases,  so  imponderable  that  if  the 
earth  were  to  j^ass  through  one  of  them  we  would  be  un- 
conscious of  the  contact.  Others  have  imagined  them  to 
be  mere  smoke-wreaths,  faint  mists,  so  rarefied  that  the 
substance  of  one  a  hundi'ed  million  miles  long  could,  like 
the  genie  in  the  Arabian  story,  be  inclosed  in  one  of  Solo- 
mon's brass  bottles. 

But  the  results  of  recent  researches  contradict  these 
views  : 

Padre  Secchi,  of  Rome,  observed,  in  Donati's  comet, 
of  1858,  from  the  15th  to  the  22d  of  October,  that  the 
nucleus  threw  out  intermittingly  from  itself  appendages 
having  the  form  of  brilliant,  coma-shaped  masses  of  in- 
candescent substance  twisted  violently  backward.  He 
accounts  for  these  very  remarkable  changes  of  configura- 
tion by  the  influence  first  of  the  sim's  heat  upon  the  com- 
et's substance  as  it  approached  toward  perihelion,  and 
afterward  by  the  production  in  the  luminous  emanations 
thus  generated  of  enormous  tides  and  perturbation  de- 
rangements. Some  of  the  most  conspicuous  of  these  lu- 
minous developments  occurred  on  October  11th,  when  the 
comet  was  at  its  nearest  approach  to  the  earth,  and  on 


66  THE  COMET. 

October  ITtli,  when  it  was  nearest  to  the  planet  Venus. 
He  has  no  doubt  that  the  close  neighborhood  of  the  earth 
and  Venus  at  those  times  was  the  effective  cause  of  the 
sudden  changes  of  aspect,  and  that  those  changes  of 
aspect  may  be  accepted  as  proof  that  the  comefs  sub- 
stance cojisists  of  '■'■  really  ponderable  materiaV 

Mr,  Lockyer  used  the  spectroscope  to  analyze  the  light 
of  Coggia's  comet,  and  he  established  beyond  question 
that — 

"  Some  of  the  rays  of  the  comet  were  sent  either  from 
solid  particles,  or  from  vapor  in  a  state  of  very  high  con- 
densation, and  also  that  beyond  doubt  other  portions  of 
the  comet's  light  issue  from  the  vapor  shining  by  its  axon 
inherent  light.  The  light  coming  from  the  more  dense 
constituents,  and  therefore  giving  a  continuous  colored 
spectrum,  was,  however,  deficient  in  blue  rays,  and  was 
most  probably  emitted  by  material  substance  at  the  loic 
red  and  yelloic  stages  of  incandescence.'''' 

Padre  Secchi,  at  Rome,  believed  he  saw  in  the  comet 
"  carbon,  or  an  oxide  of  carbon,  as  the  source  of  the  bright 
luminous  bands,"  and  the  Abbe  Moigno  asks  whether  this 
comet  may  not  be,  after  all,  "  un  gigantesque  d'lamant 
volatilise.'''' 

"Whatever  may  be  the  answer  hereafter  given  to  that 
question,  the  verdict  of  the  spectroscope  is  clearly  to  the 
effect  that  the  comet  is  made  up  of  a  commingling  of  thin 
vapor  and  of  denser  particles,  either  compressed  into  the 
condition  of  solidification,  or  into  some  physical  state  ap- 
proaching to  that  condition,  and  is  therefore  entirely  in 
accordance  with  the  notion  formed  on  other  grounds  that 
the  nucleus  of  the  comet  is  a  cluster  of  solid  nodules  or 
gramdes,  and  that  the  luminous  coma  and  tail  are  jets 
and  jackets  of  vapor,  associated  with  the  more  dense  in- 
gredients, and  sv-aying  and  streaming  about  them  as  heat 
and  gravity,  acti?ig  a^itagonistic  icays,  determine.''^  * 

*  "  Edinburgh  Review,"  October,  18'74,  p.  210. 


WHAT  IS  A    COMET?  67 

If  the  comet  shines  by  reflected  light,  it  is  pretty  good 
evidence  that  there  must  be  some  material  substance  there 
to  reflect  the  light. 

"  A  considerable  portion  of  the  light  of  the  comet  is, 
nevertheless,  borrowed  from  the  sun,  for  it  has  one  prop- 
erty belonging  to  it  that  only  reflected  light  can  mani- 
fest. It  is  capable  of  being  polarized  by  prisms  of  double- 
refracting  spar.  Polarization  of  this  character  is  only 
possible  when  the  light  that  is  operated  upon  has  already 
been  reflected  from  an  imperfectly  transparent  medi- 
um.'''' * 

There  is  considerable  difference  of  opinion  as  to 
whether  the  head  of  the  comet  is  solid  matter  or  inflam- 
mable gas. 

"  There  is  nearly  always  a  point  of  superior  brilliancy 
perceptible  in  the  comet's  head,  which  is  termed  its  nu- 
cleus, and  it  is  necessarily  a  matter  of  pressing  interest  to 
determine  what  this  bright  nucleus  is  ;  whether  it  is  really 
a  kernel  of  hard,  solid  substance,  or  merely  a  whiff  of 
somewhat  more  condensed  vapoi'.  Newton,  fi-om  the  tirst, 
maintained  that  the  comet  is  tnade  partly  of  solid  sub- 
stance, and  partly  of  an  investment  of  thin,  elastic  vapors. 
If  this  is  the  case,  it  is  manifest  that  the  central  nodule  of 
dense  substance  should  be  capable  of  intercepting  light 
when  it  passes  in  front  of  a  more  distant  luminary,  such 
as  a  fixed  star.  Comets,  on  this  account,  have  been 
watched  very  narrowly  whenever  they  have  been  making 
such  a  passage.  On  August  18,  1774,  the  astronomer 
Messier  believed  that  he  saw  a  second  bright  star  hurst 
into  sight  from  behind  the  nucleus  of  a  comet  lohich  had 
concealed  it  the  instant  before.  Another  observer,  Wart- 
mann,  in  the  year  1828,  noticed  that  the  light  of  an  eighth- 
magnitude  star  was  temporarily  quenched  as  the  nucleus 
ofEnche's  comet  passed  over  it.''"'  f 

Others,  again,  have  held  that  stars  have  been  seen 
through  the  comet's  nucleus. 

*  "  Edinburgh  Review,"  October,  18H,  p.  207.  f  Ibid.,  p.  206. 


68  THE  COMET. 

AmMee  Guillemin  says  : 

"  Comets  have  been  observed  whose  heads,  instead  of 
being  nebulous,  have  presented  the  appearance  of  stars, 
with  which,  indeed,  they  have  been  confounded."  * 

When  Sir  William   Herschel   discovered  the   planet 
Urania,  he  thought  it  was  a  comet. 
Mr.  Richard  A.  Proctor  says  : 

"The  spectroscopic  observations  made  by  Mr.  Hug- 
gins  on  the  light  of  three  comets  show  that  a  certain  por- 
tion, at  least,  of  the  light  of  these  objects  is  inherent.  .  .  . 
The  nucleus  gave  in  each  case  three  bands  of  light,  indi- 
cating that  the  substances  of  the  nuclei  consisted  of  glow- 
ing vapor."  f 

In  one  case,  the  comet-head  seemed,  as  in  the  case  of 
the  comet  examined  by  Padre  Secchi,  to  consist  of  pure 
carbon. 

In  the  great  work  of  Dr.  H.  Schellen,  of  Cologne,  an- 
notated by  Professor  Huggins,  we  read  : 

"  That  the  nucleus  of  a  comet  can  not  be  in  itself  a 
dark  and  solid  body,  such  as  the  planets  are,  is  proved  by 
its  great  transparency  ;  but  this  does  not  preclude  the 
possibility  of  its  consisting  of  innumerable  solid  jxirt ides 
separated  from  one  another,  which,  when  illuminated  by 
the  sun,  give,  by  the  reflection  of  the  solar  light,  the  im- 
pression of  a  homogeneous  mass.  It  has,  therefore,  been 
concluded  that  comets  are  either  composed  of  a  substance 
which,  like  gas  in  a  state  of  extreme  rarefaction,  is  perfectly 
transparent,  or  of  small  solid  2Kirticles  individually  sepa- 
rated by  intervening  spaces  through  which  the  light  of  a 
star  can  pass  without  obstruction,  and  which,  held  to- 
gether by  mutual  attraction,  as  well  as  by  gravitation 
toward  a  denser  central  conglomeration,  moves  through 
space  like  a  cloud  of  dust.  In  any  case  the  connection 
lately  noticed  by  Schiaparelli,  between  comets  and  mete- 

*  "  The  Heavens,"  p.  239. 

f  Note  to  Guillemin's  "  Heavens,"  p.  261. 


WHAT  IS  A    COMET?  69 

oric  showers,  seems  to  necessitate  the  supposition  that  in 
many  comets  a  similar  aggregation  of  particles  seems  to 
exist."  * 

I  can  not  "better  sum  up  the  latest  results  of  research 
than  by  giving  Dr.  Schellen's  words  in  the  work  just 
cited  : 

"  By  collating  these  various  phenomena,  the  convic- 
tion can  scarcely  be  resisted  that  the  nuclei  of  comets  not 
only  emit  their  own  light,  which  is  that  of  a  glowing  gas, 
but  also,  together  with  the  coma  and  the  tail,  reflect  the 
light  of  the  sun.  There  seems  nothing,  therefore,  to 
contradict  the  theory  that  the  mass  of  a  comet  may  be 
comjDosed  of  minute  solid  bodies,  kejit  apart  one  from  an- 
other in  the  same~  way  as  the  infinitesimal  particles  form- 
ing a  cloud  of  dust  or  smoke  are  held  loosely  together, 
and  that,  as  the  comet  approaches  the  sun,  the  most  easily 
fusible  constituents  of  these  small  bodies  become  wholly 
or  partially  vajjorized,  and  in  a  condition  of  ichite  heat 
overtake  the  remaining  solid  particles,  and  surround  the 
nucleus  in  a  self-luminous  cloud  of  glowing  vapor."  f 

Here,  then,  we  have  the  comet : 

First,  a  more  or  less  solid  nucleus,  on  fire,  blazing, 
glowing. 

Second,  vast  masses  of  gas  heated  to  a  white  heat  and 
enveloping  the  nucleus,  and  constituting  the  luminous 
head,  which  was  in  one  case  fifty  times  as  large  as  the 
moon. 

Third,  solid  materials,  constituting  the  tail  (possibly 
the  nucleus  also),  which  are  ponderable,  which  reflect  the 
sun's  light,  and  are  carried  along  under  the  influence  of 
the  nucleus  of  the  comet. 

Fourth,  possibly  in  the  rear  of  all  these,  attenuated 
volumes  of  gas,  prolonging  the  tail  for  great  distances. 

What  are  these  solid  materials  ? 


4:  (( 


Spectrum  Analysis,"  18*72.  f  Ibid.,  p.  402. 


70  THE  COMET. 

Stones,  and  sand,  the  finely  comminuted  particles  of 
stones  ground  off  by  ceaseless  attrition. 

What  is  the  proof  of  this  ? 

Simply  this  :  that  it  is  now  conceded  that  meteoric 
showers  are  shreds  and  patches  of  cometic  matter,  drojiped 
from  the  tail ;  and  meteoric  shoioers  are  stones. 

"  Schiaparelli  considers  meteors  to  be  dispersed  por- 
tions of  the  comet's  original  substance  ;  that  is,  of  the  sub- 
stance with  which  the  comet  entered  the  solar  domain. 
Thus  comets  would  come  to  be  regarded  as  consisting  of 
a  multitude  of  relativeli/  minute  masses.''''* 

Now,  what  is  the  genesis  of  a  comet  ?  How  did  it 
come  to  be  ?    How  was  it  born  ? 

In  the  first  place,  there  are  many  things  which  would 
connect  them  with  our  planets. 

They  belong  to  the  solar  system  ;  they  revolve  around 
the  sun. 

Says  Amedee  Guillemin  : 

"  Comets  form  a  part  of  our  solar  system.  Like  the 
planets,  they  revolve  about  the  sun,  traversing  with  very 
variable  velocities  extremely  elongated  orbits."  f 

We  shall  see  reason  to  believe  that  they  contain  the 
same  kinds  of  substances  of  w^hich  the  planets  are  com- 
posed. 

Their  orbits  seem  to  be  reminiscences  of  former  plane- 
tary conditions  : 

"All  the  comets,  having  a  period  not  exceeding  seven 
years,  travel  in  the  same  direction  around  the  sun  as  the 
planets.  Among  comets  with  periods  less  than  eighty 
years  long,  five  sixths  travel  in  the  same  direction  as  the 
planets."  J 

*  "American  Cyclopaedia,"  vol.  v,  p.  141. 

\  "  The  Heavens,"  p.  239. 

X  "American  Cyclopaedia,"  vol.  v,  p.  141. 


WHAT  IS  A    COMET?  71 

It  is  agreed  that  this  globe  of  ours  was  at  first  a  gas- 
eous mass ;  as  it  cooled  it  condensed  like  cooling  steam 
into  a  liquid  mass  ;  it  became  in  time  a  molten  globe  of 
red-hot  matter.  As  it  cooled  still  further,  a  crust  or  shell 
formed  around  it,  like  the  shell  formed  on  an  egg,  and 
on  this  crust  we  dwell. 

While  the  crust  is  still  plastic  it  shrinks  as  the  mass 
within  grows  smaller  by  further  cooling,  and  the  wrinkles 
so  formed  in  the  crust  are  the  depths  of  the  ocean  and 
the  elevations  of  the  mountain-chains. 

But  as  ages  go  on  and  the  process  of  cooling  progresses, 
the  crust  reaches  a  density  when  it  supports  itself,  like  a 
couple  of  great  arches  ;  it  no  longer  wrinkles  ;  it  no 
longer  follows  downward  the  receding  molten  mass  with- 
in ;  mountains  cease  to  be  formed  ;  and  at  length  we 
have  a  red-hot  ball  revolving  in  a  shell  or  crust,  with  a 
space  between  the  two,  like  the  space  between  the  dried 
and  shrunken  kernel  of  the  nut  and  the  nut  itself. 

Volcanoes  are  always  found  on  sea-shores  or  on  isl- 
ands. Why  ?  Through  breaks  in  the  earth  the  sea-water 
finds  its  way  occasionally  down  upon  the  breast  of  the 
molten  mass  ;  it  is  at  once  converted  into  gas,  steam  ;  and 
as  it  expands  it  blows  itself  out  through  the  escape-pipe 
of  the  volcano  ;  precisely  as  the  gas  formed  by  the  gun- 
powder coming  in  contact  with  the  fire  of  the  percussion- 
cap,  drives  the  ball  out  before  it  through  the  same  passage 
by  which  it  had  entered.  Hence,  some  one  has  said,  "No 
water,  no  volcano." 

While  the  amount  of  water  which  so  enters  is  small 
because  of  the  smallness  of  the  cavity  between  the  shell 
of  the  earth  and  the  molten  globe  within,  this  process  is 
carried  on  upon  a  comparatively  small  scale,  and  is  a  safe 
one  for  the  earth.  But  suppose  the  process  of  cooling  to 
go  on  uninterruptedly  until  a  vast  space  exists  between  the 


73  THE  COMET. 

crust  and  tlie  core  of  the  earth,  and  that  some  day  a  con- 
vulsion of  the  surface  creates  a  great  chasm  in  the  crust, 
and  the  ocean  rushes  in  and  fills  up  part  of  the  cavity  ;  a 
tremendous  quantity  of  steam  is  formed,  too  great  to  es- 
cape by  the  aperture  through  which  it  entered,  an  explo- 
sion takes  i^lace,  and  the  crust  of  the  earth  is  blown  into  a 
million  fragments. 

The  great  molten  ball  within  remains  intact,  though 
sorely  torn  ;  in  its  center  is  still  the  force  we  call  gravity  ; 
the  fragments  of  the  crust  can  not  fly  off  into  space  ;  they 
are  constrained  to  follow  the  master-power  lodged  in  the 
ball,  which  now  becomes  the  nucleus  of  a  comet,  still  blaz- 
ing and  burning,  and  vomiting  flames,  and  wearing  itself 
away.  The  catastrophe  has  disarranged  its  course,  but  it 
still  revolves  in  a  prolonged  orbit  around  the  sun,  carry- 
ing its  broken  debris  in  a  long  trail  behind  it. 

This  debris  arranges  itself  in  a  regular  order  :  the 
largest  fragments  are  on  or  nearest  the  head  ;  the  smaller 
are  farther  away,  diminishing  in  regular  gradation,  until 
the  farthest  extremity,  the  tail,  consists  of  sand,  dust,  and 
gases.  There  is  a  continual  movement  of  the  particles  of 
the  tail,  operated  upon  by  the  attraction  and  repulsion  of 
the  sun.  The  fragments  collide  and  crash  against  each 
other  ;  by  a  natural  law  each  stone  places  itself  so  that 
its  longest  diameter  coincides  with  the  direction  of  the 
motion  of  the  comet ;  hence,  as  they  scrape  against  each 
other  they  mark  each  other  with  lines  or  strim,  lengthwise 
of  their  longest  diameter.  The  fine  dust  ground  out  by 
these  perpetual  collisions  does  not  go  off  into  space,  or 
pack  around  the  stones,  but,  still  governed  by  the  attrac- 
tion of  the  head,  it  falls  to  the  rear  and  takes  its  place,  like 
the  small  men  of  a  regiment,  in  the  farther  part  of  the  tail. 

Now,  all  this  agrees  with  what  science  tells  us  of  the 
constitution  of  clay. 


WHAT  IS  A    COMET?  73 

"  It  is  a  finely  levigated  silico  -  aluminous  earth — 
formed  by  the  disintegration  of  feldspathic  or  granite 
rocks."  * 

The  particles  groimd  out  of  feldspar  are  finer  than 
those  derived  from  mica  and  hornblende,  and  we  can 
readily  understand  how  the  great  forces  of  gravity,  act- 
ing upon  the  dust  of  the  comet's  tail,  might  separate  one 
from  the  other  ;  or  how  magnetic  waves  passing  through 
the  comet  might  arrange  all  the  particles  containing  iron 
by  themselves,  and  thus  produce  that  marvelous  sej^ara- 
tion  of  the  constituents  of  the  gi*anite  which  we  have 
found  to  exist  in  the  Drift  clays.  If  the  destroyed  world 
possessed  no  sedimentary  rocks,  then  the  entire  material 
of  the  comet  would  consist  of  granitic  stones  and  dust 
such  as  constitutes  clays. 

The  stones  arc  reduced  to  a  small  size  by  the  constant 
attrition  : 

"  The  stones  of  the  '  till '  are  not  of  the  largest ;  indeed, 
bowlders  above  four  feet  in  diameter  are  comparatively 
seldom  met  with  in  the  till."  f 

And  this  theory  is  corroborated  by  the  fact  that  the 
eminent  German  geologist.  Dr.  Hahn,  has  recently  dis- 
covered an  entire  series  of  organic  remains  in  meteoric 
stones,  of  the  class  called  chrondites,  and  which  he  iden- 
tifies as  belonging  to  classes  of  sponges,  corals,  and  cri- 
noids.  Dr.  Weinland,  another  distinguished  German, 
corroborates  these  discoveries  ;  and  he  has  also  found 
fragments  in  these  stones  very  much  like  the  youngest 
marine  chalk  in  the  Gulf  of  Mexico  ;  and  he  thinks  he 
sees,  under  the  microscope,  traces  of  vegetable  growth. 
Francis  Birgham  says  : 

*  "  American  Cyclopaedia,"  article  "  Clay." 
f  "The  Great  Ice  Age,"  p.  10. 
5 


74  THE  COMET. 

"This  entire  ex-terrestrial  fauna  hitherto  discovered, 
which  already  comprises  about  fifty  different  sj^ecies,  and 
which  originates  from  different  meteoric  falls,  even  from 
some  during  the  last  century,  conveys  the  impression  that 
it  doubtlessly  once  formed  part  of  a  single  ex-terrestrial- 
celestial  body  with  a  unique  creation,  which  in  by-gone 
ages  seems  to  have  been  overtaken  by  a  grand  catastrophe, 
during  which  it  vras  broken  up  into  fragments."  * 

When  we  remember  that  meteors  are  now  generally 
believed  to  be  the  droppings  of  comets,  we  come  very 
near  to  proof  of  the  supposition  that  comets  are  the  debris 
of  exploded  planets  ;  for  only  on  planets  can  we  suppose 
that  life  existed,  for  there  was  required,  for  the  growth 
of  these  sponges,  coi'als,  and  crinoids,  rocks,  earth,  water, 
seas  or  lakes,  atmosphere,  sunshine,  and  a  range  of  tem- 
perature between  the  degree  of  cold  where  life  is  frozen 
up  and  the  degree  of  heat  in  which  it  is  burned  up  : 
hence,  these  meteors  must  be  fragments  of  bodies  pos- 
sessing earth-like  conditions. 

We  know  that  the  heavenly  bodies  are  formed  of  the 
same  materials  as  our  globe. 

Dana  says  : 

"Meteoric  stones  exemplify  the  same  chemical  and 
crystallographic  laws  as  the  rocks  of  the  earth,  and  have 
afforded  no  new  element  or  principle  of  any  kind."  f 

It  may  be  presumed,  therefore,  that  the  granite  crust 
of  the  exploded  globe  from  which  some  comet  was  cre- 
ated was  the  source  of  the  finely  triturated  material 
which  we  know  as  clay. 

But  the  clays  are  of  different  colors — white,  yellow, 
red,  and  blue, 

*  "Popular  Science  Monthly,"  November,  1881,  p.  S6. 
\  "Manual  of  Geology,"  p.  3. 


WHAT  IS  A    COMET?  75 

"The  aluminous  minerals  contained  in  granite  rocks 
are  feldspar,  mica,  and  hornblende.  .  .  .  Mica  and  horn- 
blende generally  contain  considerable  oxide  of  iron,  while 
feldspar  usually  yields  only  a  trace  or  none.  Therefore 
clays  which  are  derived  from  feldspar  are  light-colored  or 
white,  Avhile  those  partially  made  up  of  decomposed  mica 
or  hornblende  are  dark,  either  bluish  or  red."  * 

The  tail  of  the  comet  seems  to  be  perpetually  in  mo- 
tion. It  is,  says  one  writer,  "  continually  changing  and 
fluctuating  as  vaporous  masses  of  cloud-like  structure 
might  be  conceived  to  do,  and  in  some  instances  there  has 
been  a  strong  appearance  even  of  an  undulating  move- 
ment.'''' f 

The  great  comet  of  1858,  Donati's  comet,  which  many 
now  living  will  well  remember,  and  which  was  of  such  size 
that  when  its  head  was  near  our  horizon  the  extremity  of 
the  tail  reached  nearly  to  the  zenith,  illustrated  this  con- 
tinual movement  of  the  material  of  the  tail ;  that  append- 
age shrank  and  enlai'ged  millions  of  miles  in  length. 

Mr.  Lockyer  believed  that  he  saw  in  Coggia's  comet 
the  evidences  of  a  ichirling  motion — 

"In  which  the  regions  of  greatest  brightness  were 
caused  by  the  different  coils  cutting,  or  appearing  to  cut, 
each  other,  and  so  in  these  parts  leading  to  compression 
or  condensation,  and  frequent  collision  of  the  luminous 
particles.'''' 

Olbers  saw  in  a  comet's  tail — 

"  A  sudden  flash  and  pulsation  of  light  which  vibrated 
for  several  seconds  through  it,  and  the  tail  appeared  dur- 
ing the  continuance  of  the  pulsations  of  light  to  be  length- 
ened by  several  degrees  and  then  again  contracted."  * 

*  "  American  Cyclopaedia,"  article  "  Clay." 

f  "Edinburgh  Review,"  October,  1874,  p.  208. 

X  "  Cosmos,"  vol.  i,  p.  143. 


76  THE  COMET. 

Xo\r,  in  this  perjDetual  motion,  this  conflict,  these  great 
thrills  of  movement,  we  are  to  find  the  source  of  the  clays 
which  cover  a  large  part  of  our  globe  to  a  depth  of  hun- 
dreds of  feet.  Where  are  those  exposures  of  granite  on 
the  face  of  the  earth  from  which  ice  or  water  could  have 
ground  them  ?  Granite,  I  repeat,  comes  to  the  surface 
only  in  limited  areas.  And  it  must  be  remembered  that 
clay  is  the  product  exclusively  of  granite  ground  to  pow- 
der. The  clays  are  composed  exclusively  of  the  products 
of  disintegrated  granite.  They  contain  but  a  trace  of 
lime  or  magnesia  or  organic  matters,  and  these  can  be 
supposed  to  have  been  infiltrated  into  them  after  their 
arrival  on  the  face  of  the  earth.*  Other  kinds  of  rock, 
ground  up,  form  sand.  Moreover,  we  have  seen  that  nei- 
ther glaciers  nor  ice-sheets  now  produce  such  clays. 

We  shall  see,  as  we  proceed,  that  the  legends  of  man- 
kind, in  describing  the  comet  thit  struck  the  earth,  rep- 
resent it  as  party-colored  ;  it  is  "  sjjeckled  "  in  one  legend  ; 
spotted  like  a  tiger  in  another  ;  sometimes  it  is  a  white 
boar  in  the  heavens  ;  sometimes  a  blue  snake  ;  sometimes 
it  is  red  with  the  blood  of  the  millions  that  are  to  perish. 
Doubtless  these  separate  formations,  ground  out  of  the 
granite,  from  the  mica,  hornblende,  or  feldspar,  respect- 
ively, may,  as  I  have  said,  under  great  laws,  acted  upon 
by  magnetism  or  electricity,  have  arranged  themselves  in 
separate  lines  or  sheets,  in  the  tail  of  the  comet,  and 
hence  we  find  that  the  clays  of  one  region  are  of  one 
color,  while  those  of  another  are  of  a  different  hue. 
Again,  we  shall  see  that  the  legends  represent  the  mon- 
ster as  "  winding,"  undulating,  writhing,  twisting,  fold 
over  fold,  precisely  as  the  telescopes  show  us  the  comets 
do  to-day. 

*  "  American  Cyclopaedia,"  vol.  iv,  p.  650. 


WHAT  IS  A    COMET?  77 

The  very  fact  that  these  waves  of  motion  run  through 
the  tail  of  the  comet,  and  that  it  is  capable  of  expanding 
and  contracting  on  an  immense  scale,  is  conclusive  proof 
that  it  is  comjDosed  of  small,  adjustable  particles.  The 
writer  from  whom  I  have  already  quoted,  speaking  of  the 
extraordinary  comet  of  1843,  says  : 

"  As  the  comet  moves  past  the  great  luminary,  it  sweeps 
round  its  tail  as  a  sword  may  be  conceived  to  be  held  out 
at  arm's-length,  and  then  waved  round  the  head,  from  one 
side  to  the  opposite.  But  a  sword  with  a  blade  one  hun- 
dred and  fifty  millions  of  miles  long  must  be  a  somewhat 
awkward  weapon  to  brandish  round  after  this  fashion. 
Its  point  would  have  to  sweep  through  a  curve  stretching 
out  more  than  six  hundred  millions  of  miles  ;  and,  even 
with  an  allowance  of  two  hours  for  the  accomplishment 
of  the  movement,  the  flash  of  the  weapon  would  be  of 
such  terrific  velocity  that  it  is  not  an  easy  task  to  con- 
ceive how  any  blade  of  connected  material  substance  could 
bear  the  strain  of  the  stroke.  Even  with  a  blade  that 
possessed  the  coherence  and  tenacity  of  iron  or  steel,  the 
case  would  be  one  that  it  would  be  difficult  for  molecular 
cohesion  to  deal  with.  But  that  difficulty  is  almost  infi- 
nitely increased  when  it  is  a  sxibstance  of  much  lower  co- 
hesive tenacity  than  either  iron  or  steel  that  has  to  be 
subjected  to  the  strain. 

"  There  would  be,  at  least,  some  mitigation  of  this 
difficulty  if  it  were  lawful  to  assume  that  the  substance 
which  is  subjected  to  this  strain  was  not  amenable  to  the 
laws  of  ponderable  existence  ;  if  there  were  room  for  the 
notion  that  comets  and  their  tails,  which  have  to  be  bran- 
dished in  such  a  stupendous  fashion,  were  sky-spectres, 
immaterial  phantoms,  unreal  visions  of  that  negative 
shadows-kind  which  has  been  alluded  to.  This,  however, 
unfortunately,  is  not  a  permissible  alternative  in  the  cir- 
cumstances of  the  case.  The  great  underlying  and  indis- 
pensable fact  that  the  comet  comes  rushing  up  toward  the 
sun  out  of  space,  and  then  shoots  round  that  great  cen- 
ter of  attraction  by  the  force  of  its  own  acquired  and 
ever-increasing  impetuosity  ;  the  fact  that  it  is  obedient 


78  THE   COMET. 

through  this  course  to  the  law  of  elliptical,  or,  to  speak 
more  exactly,  of  conic-section,  movement, /)gr//«z7s  of  no 
doubt  as  to  the  condition  of  materiality.  The  comet  is 
obviously  drawn  by  the  influence  of  the  sun's  mass,  and 
is  subservient  to  that  all-pervading  law  of  sympathetic 
gravitation  that  is  the  sustaining  bond  of  the  material 
universe.  It  is  ponderable  substance  beyond  all  question, 
and  held  by  that  chain  of  physical  connection  Avhich  it 
was  the  glory  of  Newton  to  discover.  If  the  comet  wei'e 
not  a  material  and  ponderable  substance  it  would  not 
gravitate  round  the  sun,  and  it  woitld  not  move  with  in- 
creasing velocity  as  it  neared  the  mighty  mass  until  it  had 
gathered  the  energy  for  its  own  escape  in  the  enhanced 
and  quickened  momentum.  In  the  first  instance,  the  ready 
obedience  to  the  attraction,  and  then  the  overshooting  of 
the  spot  from  which  it  is  exerted,  combine  to  establish 
the  comet's  right  to  stand  ranked  at  least  among  the  pon- 
derable bodies  of  space."  * 

And  it  is  to  the  comet  we  must  look  for  the  source  of 
a  great  part  of  those  vast  deposits  of  gravel  which  go  to 
constitute  the  Drift. 

"They  have  been  usually  attributed  to  the  action  of 
waves  ;  but  the  mechanical  work  of  the  ocean  is  mostly 
confined  to  its  shores  and  soundings,  where  alone  material 
exists  in  quantity  within  reach  of  the  waves  and  currents. f 
.  .  .  The  eroding  action  is  greatest  for  a  short  distance 
above  the  height  of  half -tide,  and,  except  in  violent  storms, 
it  is  almost  null  below  low-tide."  J 

But  if  any  one  will  examine  a  sea-beach  he  will  see,  not 
a  vast  mass  of  pebbles  perpetually  rolling  and  grinding 
each  other,  but  an  expanse  of  sand.  And  this  is  to  be 
expected  ;  for  as  soon  as  a  part  of  the  pebbles  is,  by  the 
attrition  of  the  waves,  reduced  to  sand,  the  sand  packs 
around  the  stones  and  arrests  their  further  waste.  To 
form  such  a  mass  of  gravel  as  is  found  in  the  Drift  we 

*  "Edinburgh  Review,"  October,  1874,  p.  202. 
f  Dana's  "Text  Book,"  p.  286.  %  Ibid.,  p.  287. 


WHAT  IS  A    COMET?  79 

must  conceive  of  some  way  whereby,  as  soon  as  the  sand 
is  formed,  it  is  removed  from  the  stones  while  the  work  of 
attrition  goes  on.  This  pi'ocess  we  can  conceive  of  in  a 
comet,  if  the  finer  detritus  is  constantly  carried  back  and 
arranged  in  the  order  of  the  size  of  its  particles. 

To  illustrate  my  meaning  :  let  one  place  any  hard  sub- 
stance, consisting  of  large  fragments,  in  a  mortar,  and 
proceed  to  reduce  it  with  a  pestle  to  a  fine  powder.  The 
work  proceeds  rapidly  at  first,  until  a  portion  of  the  ma- 
terial is  triturated  ;  you  then  find  that  the  pulverized 
part  has  packed  around  and  protected  the  larger  frag- 
ments, and  the  work  is  brought  to  a  stand-still.  You 
have  to  remove  the  finer  material  if  you  would  crush  the 
pieces  that  remain. 

The  sea  does  not  separate  the  sand  from  the  gravel ; 
it  places  all  together  at  elevations  where  the  waves  can 
not  reach  them  : 

"  Waves  or  shallow  soundings  have  some  transporting 
power  ;  and,  as  they  always  move  toward  the  land,  their 
action  is  landward.  They  thus  beat  back,  little  by  little, 
any  detritus  in  the  waters,  preventing  that  loss  to  conti- 
nents or  islands  which  would  take  place  if  it  were  carried 
out  to  sea."  * 

The  pebbles  and  gravel  are  soon  driven  by  the  waves 
up  the  shore,  and  beyond  the  reach  of  further  wear  ;  f 
and  "  the  rivers  carry  only  silt  to  the  oceanP  \ 

The  brooks  and  rivers  produce  much  more  gravel  than 
the  sea-shore  : 

"  The  detritus  brought  down  by  rivers  is  vastly  greater 
in  quantity  than  the  stones,  sand,  or  clay  produced  by  the 
wear  of  the  coasts."  * 

*  Dana's  "  Text  Book,"  p.  288.  \  Ibid.,  p.  291.  %  Ibid.,  p.  302. 

#  Ibid.,  p.  290. 


80  THE  COMET. 

But  it  would  be  absurd  to  suppose  that  the  beds  of 
rivers  could  have  furnished  the  immeasurable  volumes  of 
gravel  found  over  a  great  part  of  the  world  in  the  drift- 
deposits. 

And  the  drift-gravel  is  different  from  the  gravel  of 
the  sea  or  rivers. 

Geikie  says,  speaking  of  the  "  till "  : 

"  There  is  something  very  peculiar  about  the  shape  of 
the  stones.  They  are  neither  round  and  oval,  like  the 
pebbles  in  river-gravel,  or  the  shingle  of  the  sea-shore, 
nor  are  they  sharply  angular  like  newly-fallen  debris  at 
the  base  of  a  cliff,  although  they  more  closely  resemble 
the  latter  than  the  former.  They  are,  indeed,  angular  in 
shape,  but  the  sharj)  corners  and  edges  have  invariably 
been  smoothed  away.  .  .  .  Their  shape,  as  will  be  seen,  is 
by  no  means  their  most  striking  peculiarity.  Each  is 
smoothed,  polished,  and  covered  with  strife  or  scratches, 
some  of  which  are  delicate  as  the  lines  traced  by  an  etch- 
ing-needle, others  deep  and  harsh  as  the  scores  made  by 
the  plow  upon  a  rock.  And,  what  is  worthy  of  note,  most 
of  the  scratches,  coarse  and  fine  together,  seem  to  run 
parallel  to  the  longer  diameter  of  the  stones,  Avhich,  how- 
ever, are  scratched  in  many  other  directions  as  well."  * 

Let  me  again  summarize  : 

I.  Comets  consist  of  a  blazing  nucleus  and  a  mass  of 
ponderable,  separated  matter,  such  as  stones,  gravel,  clay- 
dust,  and  gas. 

II.  The  nucleus  gives  out  great  heat  and  masses  of 
burn  in  oj  oras. 

III.  Luminous  gases  surround  the  nucleus. 

IV.  The  drift-clays  are  the  result  of  the  grinding  up 
of  granitic  rocks. 

V.  No  such  deposits,  of  anything  like  equal  magni- 
tude, could  have  been  formed  on  the  earth. 

*  "  The  Great  Ice  Age,"  p.  13. 


WHAT  IS  A    COMET?  81 

VI.  No  such  clays  are  now  being  formed  under  glaciers 
or  Arctic  ice-sheets. 

VII.  These  clays  were  ground  out  of  the  substance  of 
the  comet  by  the  endless  changes  of  position  of  the  ma- 
terial of  which  it  is  composed  as  it  flew  through  space, 
during  its  incalculable  journeys  in  the  long  reaches  of 
time. 

VIII.  The  earth-supplies  of  gravel  are  inadequate  to 
account  for  the  gravel  of  the  drift-deposits. 

IX.  Neither  sea-beach  nor  rivers  produce  stones  like 
those  found  in  the  Drift. 

I  pass  now  to  the  next  question. 


82  THE  COMET. 


CHAPTER  III. 

COULD  A    COMET  STRIKE  THE  EARTH P 

Reader,  the  evidence  I  am  about  to  present  will  sat- 
isfy you,  not  only  that  a  comet  might  have  struck  the 
earth  in  the  remote  past,  but,  that  the  marvel  is  that  the 
earth  escapes  collision  for  a  single  century,  I  had  almost 
said  for  a  single  year. 

How  many  comets  do  you  suppose  there  are  within  the 
limits  of  the  solar  system  (and  remember  that  the  solar 
system  occupies  but  an  insignificant  portion  of  universal 
space)  ? 

Half  a  dozen — fifty — a  hundred — you  will  answer. 
•    Let  us  put  the  astronomers  on  the  witness-stand  : 

Kepler  affirmed  that  "  comets  are  scattered  through 

THE    heavens    with    AS    MUCH    PROFUSION    AS    FISHES     IN 
THE    OCEAN." 

Think  of  that  ! 

"  Three  or  four  telescopic  comets  are  now  entered 
upon  astronomical  records  every  year.  Lalande  had  a 
list  of  seven  hundred  comets  that  had  been  observed  in 
his  time." 

Arago  estimated  that  the  comets  belonging  to  the 
solar  system,  within  the  orbit  of  Neptune,  numbered  sev- 
enteen million  Jive  hundred  thousand  ! 

Lambert  regards j^ue  hundred  niillions  as  a  very  mod- 
erate estimate  I  * 

*  Guillemin,  "The  Heavens,"  p.  251. 


COULD  A    COMET  STRIKE   THE  EARTH? 


83 


And  this  does  not  include  the  monstrous  fiery  wander- 
ers who  may  come  to  visit  us,  bringing  their  relations 


Debits  of  the  Peeiodic  Coieets. 


along,  from  outside  the  solar  system — a  sort  of  celestial 
immigrants  whom  no  anti-Chinese  legislation  can  keep 
away. 

Says  Guillemin  : 

"  Leaving  mere  re-appearances  out  of  the  question,  new 
comets  are  constantly  found  to  arrive  from  the  depths  of 
space,  desci'ibing  around  the  sun  orbits  which  testify  to 
the  attractive  power  of  that  radiant  body  ;  and,  for  the 


84  THE  COMET. 

most  part,  going  away  for  centuries,  to  return  again  from 
afar  after  their  immense  revolutions."  * 

But  do  these  comets  come  anywhere  near  the  orbit  of 
the  earth  ? 

Look  at  the  map  on  the  preceding  page,  from  Amedee 
Guillemin's  great  work,  "  The  Heavens,"  page  244,  and 
you  can  answer  the  question  for  yourself. 

Here  you  see  the  orbit  of  the  earth  overwhelmed 
in  a  complication  of  comet-orbits.  The  earth,  here,  is 
like  a  lost  child  in  the  midst  of  a  forest  full  of  wild 
beasts. 

And  this  diagram  represents  the  orbits  of  only  six 
comets  out  of  those  seventeen  millions  or  five  hundred 
millions  ! 

It  is  a  celestial  game  of  ten-ijins,  with  the  solar  sys- 
tem for  a  bowling-alley,  and  the  earth  waiting  for  a  ten- 
strike. 

In  1832  the  earth  and  Biela's  comet,  as  I  will  show 
more  particularly  hereafter,  were  both  making  for  the 
same  spot,  moving  with  celestial  rapidity,  but  the  com- 
et reached  the  point  of  junction  one  month  before  the 
earth  did ;  and,  as  the  comet  was  not  polite  enough 
to  wait  for  us  to  come  uj),  this  generation  missed  a  reve- 
lation. 

"  In  the  year  1779  Lexell's  comet  approached  so  near 
to  the  earth  that  it  would  have  increased  the  length  of  the 
sidereal  year  by  three  hours  if  its  mass  had  been  equal  to 
the  earth's."  \ 

And  this  same  comet  did  strike  our  fellow-planet, 
Jupiter. 

*  "The  Heavens,"  p.  251. 

f  "Edinburgh  Review,"  October,  ISH,  p.  205. 


COULD  A    COMET  STRIKE  THE  EARTH?  85 

"In  the  years  1767  and  1779  Lexell's  comet  passed 
though  the  midst  of  Jupiter's  satellites,  and  became  en- 
tangled temporarily  among  them.  But  not  one  of  the  sat- 
ellites altei-ed  its  movements  to  the  extent  of  a  hair's- 
breadth,  or  of  a  tenth  of  an  instant."  * 

But  it  must  be  remembered  that  we  had  no  glasses 
then,  and  have  none  now,  that  could  tell  us  what  were  the 
effects  of  this  visitation  upon  the  surface  of  Jupiter  or  its 
moons.  The  comet  might  have  covered  Jupiter  one  hun- 
dred feet — yes,  one  hundred  miles — thick  with  gravel  and 
clay,  and  formed  clouds  of  its  seas  five  miles  in  thick- 
ness, without  our  knowing  anything  about  it.  Even  our 
best  telescopes  can  only  perceive  on  the  moon's  surface — 
which  is,  comparatively  speaking,  but  a  few  miles  dis- 
tant from  ixs — objects  of  very  great  size,  while  Jupiter 
is  sixteen  hundred  times  farther  away  from  us  than  the 
moon. 

But  it  is  known  that  Lexell's  comet  was  very  much 
demoralized  by  Jupiter.  It  first  came  within  the  influ- 
ence of  that  planet  in  1767  ;  it  lost  its  original  orbit,  and 
went  bobbing  around  Jupiter  until  1779,  when  it  became 
entangled  with  Jupiter's  moons,  and  then  it  lost  its  orbit 
again,  and  was  whisked  off  into  infinite  space,  never  more, 
perhaps,  to  be  seen  by  human  eyes.  Is  it  not  reasonable 
to  suppose  that  an  event  which  thus  demoralized  the  comet 
may  have  caused  it  to  cast  down  a  considerable  part  of  its 
material  on  the  face  of  Jupiter  ? 

Encke's  comet  revolves  around  the  sun  in  the  short  pe- 
riod of  twelve  hundred  and  five  days,  and,  strange  to  say — 

/  "The  period  of  its  revolution  is  constantly  diminish- 
ing ;  so  that,  if  this  progressive  diminution  always  fol- 
lows the  same  rate,  the  titne  when  the  comet,  continually 

*  "  Edinburgh  Review,"  October,  1874,  p.  205. 


86  THE  COMET. 

describing  a  spiral,  will  he  plunged  into  the  incandescent 
tnass  of  the  sun  can  he  calculated.''^* 

The  comet  of  1874,  first  seen  by  Coggia,  at  Marseilles, 
and  called  by  his  name,  came  between  the  earth  and  the 
sun,  and  approached  within  sixty  thousand  miles  of  the 
flaming  sitrface  of  the  sun.  It  traveled  through  this 
fierce  blaze  at  the  rate  of  three  hundred  and  sixty-six 
miles  per  second  !  Three  hundred  and  sixty-six  miles  }?er 
second!  When  a  railroad-train  moves  at  the  rate  of  a 
mile  per  minute,  we  regard  it  as  extraordinary  speed  ; 
but  three  hundred  and  sixty-six  miles  ^:>er  secowc?/  The 
mind  fails  to  grasp  it. 

When  this  comet  was  seen  by  Sir  John  Herschel,  after 
it  had  made  its  grand  sweep  around  the  sun,  it  was  not 
more  than  six  times  the  hreadth  of  the  sun^s  face  axray 
from  the  sun.  And  it  had  come  careering  through  infi- 
nite space  with  awful  velocity  to  this  close  approximation 
to  our  great  luminary. 

And  remember  that  these  comets  are  no  animalculse. 
They  are  monsters  that  would  reach  from  the  sun  to  the 
earth.  And  when  we  say  that  they  come  so  close  to  the 
sun  as  in  the  above  instances,  it  means  peril  to  the  earth 
by  direct  contact ;  to  say  nothing  of  the  results  to  our 
planet  by  the  increased  combustion  of  the  sun,  and  the 
increased  heat  on  earth  should  one  of  them  fall  upon  the 
sun.  We  have  seen,  in  the  last  chapter,  that  the  great 
comet  of  1843  possessed  a  tail  one  hundred  and  fifty 
million  miles  long  ;  that  is,  it  would  reach  from  the  sun 
to  the  earth,  and  have  over  fifty  million  miles  of  tail 
to  spare  ;  and  it  swept  this  gigantic  appendage  around 
in  tico  hours,  describing  the  arc  of  a  circle  six  hxmdred 
'million  miles  long  ! 

*  Guillemin,  "  The  Heavens,"  p.  247. 


COULD  A    COMET  STRIKE  THE  EARTH?  87 

The  mind  fails  to  grasp  these  figures.  Solar  space  is 
hardly  large  enough  for  such  gyrations. 

And  it  must  be  remembered  that  this  enormous  creat- 
ure actually  grazed  the  surface  of  the  sun. 

And  it  is  supposed  that  this  monster  of  1843,  which 
was  first  seen  in  1G68,  returned,  and  was  seen  in  the  south- 
ern hemisphere  in  1880 — that  is  to  say,  it  came  back  in 
thirty-seven  years  instead  of  one  hundred  and  seventy- 
five  years.     Whereupon  Mr.  Proctor  remarked  : 

"  If  already  the  comet  experiences  such  resistance  in 
passing  through  the  corona  when  at  its  nearest  to  the 
sun  that  its  period  undergoes  a  marked  diminution,  the 
effect  must  of  necessity  be  increased  at  each  return,  and 
after  only  a  few,  possibly  one  or  two,  circuits,  the  comet 
will  be  absorbed  by  the  sun." 

On  October  10,  1880,  Lewis  Swift,  of  Rochester,  New 
York,  discovered  a  comet  which  has  proved  to  be  of 
peculiar  interest.  From  its  first  discovery  it  has  pre- 
sented no  brilliancy  of  appearance,  for,  during  its  period 
of  visibility,  a  telescope  of  considerable  power  was  neces- 
sary to  observe  it.  Since  this  comet,  when  in  close  proxi- 
mity to  the  earth,  was  very  faint  indeed,  its  dimensions 
must  be  quite  moderate. 

The  illustration  on  page  88  gives  the  orbit  of  the  earth 
and  the  orbit  of  this  comet,  and  shows  how  closely  they 
approached  each  other  ;  when  at  its  nearest,  the  comet 
was  only  distant  from  the  earth  0*13  of  the  distance  of 
the  earth  from  the  sun. 

It  comes  back  in  eleven  years,  or  in  1891. 

On  the  22d  of  June,  1881,  a  comet  of  great  brilliancy 
flashed  suddenly  into  view.  It  was  unexpected,  and  ad- 
vanced with  tremendous  rapidity.  The  illustration  on 
page  89  will  show  how  its  flight  intersected  the  orbit  of 
the  earth.     At  its  nearest  point,  June  19th,  it  was  distant 


88 


THE  COMET. 


from  the  earth  only  0*28  of  the  distance  of  the  sun  from 
the  earth. 

Now,  it  is  to  be  remembered  that  great  attention  has 
been  paid  during  the  past  few  years  to  searching  for 
comets,  and  some  of  the  results  are  here  given.  As  many 
as  five  were  discovered  during  the  year  1881.     But  not 


OcT.10.l880, 


N0..8. 


a  few  of  the  greatest  of  these  strange  orbs  require  thou- 
sands of  years  to  complete  their  orbits.  The  period  of 
the  comet  of  July,  1844,  has  been  estimated  at  not  less 
than  one  hundred  thousand  years  ! 

Some  of  those  that  have  flashed  into  sight  recently 
have  been  comparatively  small,  and  their  contact  with 


COULD  A    COMET  STRIKE   THE  EARTH? 


89 


the  earth  might  produce  but  trifling  results.  Others, 
again,  are  constructed  on  an  extraordinary  scale  ;  but 
even  the  largest  of  these  may  be  but  children  compared 
■with  the  monsters  that  wander  through  space  on  orbits 


90  THE  COMET. 

that  penetrate  the  remotest  regions  of  the  solar  system, 
and  even  beyond  it. 

When  we  consider  the  millions  of  comets  around  ns, 
and  when  we  remember  how  near  some  of  these  have 
come  to  us  during  the  last  few  years,  who  will  undertake 
to  say  that  during  the  last  thirty  thousand,  fifty  thou- 
sand, or  one  hundred  thousand  years,  one  of  these  erratic 
luminaries,  with  blazing  front  and  train  of  debris,  may 
not  have  come  in  collision  with  the  earth  ? 


THE  CONSEQUENCES   TO    THE  EARTH.  91 


CHAPTER  IV. 

THE  CONSEQUENCES  TO   THE  EARTH. 

Ix  this  chapter  I  shall  try  to  show  what  effect  the  con- 
tact of  a  comet  must  have  had  upon  the  earth  and  its  in- 
habitants. 

I  shall  ask  the  reader  to  follow  the  argument  closely  : 
first,  that  he  may  see  whether  any  part  of  the  theory  is 
inconsistent  with  the  well-established  principles  of  natural 
philosophy  ;  and,  secondly,  that  he  may  bear  the  several 
steps  in  his  memory,  as  he  will  find,  as  we  proceed,  that 
every  detail  of  the  mighty  catastrophe  has  beeti  2)reserved 
in  the  legends  of  mankind,  and  precisely  in  the  order  in 
which  reason  tells  us  they  must  have  occurred. 

In  the  first  place,  it  is,  of  course,  impossible  at  this  time 
to  say  precisely  how  the  contact  took  place  ;  whether  the 
head  of  the  comet  fell  into  or  approached  close  to  the 
sun,  like  the  comet  of  1843,  and  then  swung  its  mighty 
tail,  hundreds  of  millions  of  miles  in  length,  moving  at  a 
rate  almost  equal  to  the  velocity  of  light,  around  through 
a  great  arc,  and  swept  past  the  earth  ; — the  earth,  as  it 
were,  going  through  the  midst  of  the  tail,  which  would 
extend  for  a  vast  distance  beyond  and  around  it.  In 
this  movement,  the  side  of  the  earth,  facing  the  advance 
of  the  tail,  would  receive  and  intercept  the  mass  of  mate- 
rial— stones,  gravel,  and  the  finely-ground-up-dust  which, 
compacted  by  water,  is  now  clay — which  came  in  con- 
tact with  it,  while  the  comet  would  sail  off  into  space, 


92 


THE  COMET. 


demoralized,  perhaps,  in  its  orbit,  like  Lexell's  comet 
when  it  became  entangled  with  Jupiter's  moons,  but 
shorn  of  a  comparatively  small  portion  of  its  substance. 
The  following  engraving  will  illustrate  my  meaning. 
I  can  not  give,  even  approximately,  the  proportions  of  the 


The  Comet  sweeping  past  the  Earth. 

objects  represented,  and  thus  show  the  immensity  of  the 
sun  as  compared  with  our  insignificant  little  orb.  In  a 
picture  showing  the  true  proportions  of  the  sun  and  earth, 
the  sun  would  have  to  be  so  large  that  it  would  take  up 
the  entire  page,  while  the  earth  would  be  but  as  a  pin- 


THE   CONSEQUENCES   TO    THE  EARTH. 


93 


94  THE  COMET. 

head.    And  I  have  not  drawn  the  comet  on  a  scale  large 
enough  as  compared  with  the  earth. 

If  the  reader  will  examine  the  map  on  page  93,  he 
will  see  that  the  distribution  of  the  Drift  accords  with  this 
theory.  If  we  suppose  the  side  of  the  earth  shown  in  the 
left-hand  figure  was  presented  to  the  comet,  we  will  see 
why  the  Drift  is  supposed  to  be  confined  to  Europe,  Af- 
rica, and  parts  of  America  ;  while  the  right-hand  figure 
will  show  the  half  of  the  world  that  escaped. 

"The  breadth  of  the  tail  of  the  great  comet  of  1811, 
at  its  widest  part,  was  nearly  fourteen  million  miles,  the 
length  one  hundred  and  sixteen  million  miles,  and  that  of 
the  second  comet  of  the  same  year,  one  hundred  and  forty 
million  miles."  * 

On  page  95  is  a  representation  of  this  monster. 

Imagine  such  a  creature  as  that,  with  a  hea,di  fifty  times 
as  large  as  the  moon,  and  a  tail  one  hundred  and  sixteen 
million  miles  long,  rushing  past  this  poor  little  earth  of 
ours,  with  its  diameter  of  only  seven  thousand  nine  hun- 
dred and  twenty-five  miles  !  The  earth,  seven  thousand 
nine  hundred  and  twenty-five  miles  wide,  would  simply 
make  a  bullet-hole  through  that  tail,  fourteen  million 
miles  broad,  where  it  passed  through  it  ! — a  mere  eyelet- 
hole — a  pin-hole — closed  up  at  once  by  the  constant  move- 
ments which  take  place  in  the  tail  of  the  comet.  And 
yet  in  that  moment  of  contact  the  side  of  the  earth  facing 
the  comet  might  be  covered  with  hundreds  of  feet  of 
debris. 

Or,  on  the  other  hand,  the  comet  may,  as  described 
in  some  of  the  legends,  have  struck  the  earth,  head  on, 
amid-ships,  and  the  shock  may  have  changed  the  angle 
of  inclination  of  the  earth's  axis,  and  thus  have  modified 

*  Schellen,  "  Spectrum  Analysis,"  p.  392. 


THE  CONSEQUENCES   TO    THE  EARTH.  95 

permanently  the  climate  of  our  globe  ;  and  to  this  cause 
we  might  look  also  for  the  great  cracks  and  breaks  in  the 
earth's  surface,  which  constitute  the  tiords  of  the  sea-coast 
and  the  ti'ap-extrusions  of  the  continents  ;  and  here,  too. 


The  Great  Comet  of  1811. 

might  be  the  cause  of  those  mighty  excavations,  hundreds 
of  feet  deep,  in  which  are  now  the  Great  Lakes  of  Amer- 
ica, and  from  which,  as  we  have  seen,  great  cracks  radiate 
out  in  all  directions,  like  the  fractures  in  a  pane  of  glass 
where  a  stone  has  struck  it. 

The  cavities  in  which  rest  the  Great  Lakes  have  been 
attributed  to  the  ice-sheet,  but  it  is  difficult  to  compre- 
hend how  an  ice-sheet  could  dig  out  and  root  out  a  hole, 
as  in  the  case  of  Lake  Superior,  nine  hundred  feet  dee}) ! 


96  '  THE  COMET. 

And,  if  it  did  this,  why  were  not  similar  holes  excavated, 
wherever  there  were  ice-sheets — to  wit,  all  over  the  north- 
ern and  southern  portions  of  the  globe  ?  Why  should 
a  general  cause  produce  only  local  results  ? 

Sir  Charles  Lyell  shows  *  that  glaciers  do  not  cut  out 
holes  like  the  depressions  in  which  the  Great  Lakes  lie  ; 
he  also  shows  that  these  lakes  are  not  due  to  a  sinking 
down  of  the  crust  of  the  earth,  because  the  strata  are  con- 
tinuous and  unbroken  beneath  them.  He  also  calls  atten- 
tion to  the  fact  that  there  is  a  continuous  belt  of  such 
lakes,  reaching  from  the  northwestern  part  of  the  United 
States,  through  the  Hudson  Bay  Territory,  Canada,  and 
Maine,  to  Finland,  and  that  this  belt  does  not  reach  below 
50°  north  latitiide  in  Europe  and  40°  in  America.  Do 
these  lie  in  the  track  of  the  great  collision  ?  The  comet, 
as  the  striae  indicate,  came  from  the  north. 

The  mass  of  Donati's  comet  Avas  estimated  by  3IM. 
Faye  and  Roche  at  about  the  seven-hundredth  part  of  the 
bulk  of  the  earth.     M.  Faye  says  : 

"  That  is  the  weight  of  a  sea  of  forty  thousand  square 
miles  one  hundred  and  nine  yards  deep  ;  and  it  must  be 
owned  that  a  like  mass,  animated  with  considerable  ve- 
locity, might  well  produce,  by  its  shock  with  the  earth, 
very  perceptible  results."  f 

We  have  but  to  suppose,  (a  not  unreasonable  supposi- 
tion,) that  the  comet  which  struck  the  earth  was  much 
larger  than  Donati's  comet,  and  we  have  the  means  of 
accounting  for  results  as  prodigious  as  those  referred  to. 

We  have  seen  that  it  is  difficult  to  suppose  that  ice 
produced  the  drift-deposits,  because  they  are  not  found 
where  ice  certainly  was,  and  they  are  found  where  ice 
certainly  was  not.      But,  if  the  reader  will  turn  to  the 

*  "Elements  of  Geology,"  pp.  168,  171,  et  scq. 
f  "  The  Ileavens,"  p.  260. 


THE  CONSEQUENCES   TO   THE  EARTH.  97 

illustration  which  constitutes  the  frontispiece  of  this  vol- 
ume, and  the  foregoing  engraving  on  page  93,  he  will 
see  that  the  Drift  is  deposited  on  the  earth,  as  it  might 
have  been  if  it  had  suddenly  fallen  from  the  heavens  ; 
that  is,  it  is  on  one  side  of  the  globe — to  wit,  the  side 
that  faced  the  comet  as  it  came  on.  I  think  this  map  is 
substantially  accurate.  There  is,  however,  an  absence  of 
authorities  as  to  the  details  of  the  drift-distribution.  But, 
if  my  theory  is  correct,  the  Drift  probably  fell  at  once. 
If  it  had  been  twenty-four  hours  in  falling,  the  diurnal 
revolution  would,  in  turn,  have  presented  all  sides  of  the 
earth  to  it,  and  the  Drift  would  be  found  everywhere. 
And  this  is  in  accordance  with  what  we  know  of  the  rapid 
movements  of  comets.  They  travel,  as  I  have  shown,  at 
the  rate  of  three  hundred  and  sixty-six  miles  per  second  ; 
this  is  equal  to  twenty-one  thousand  six  hundred  miles 
per  minute,  and  one  million  two  hundred  and  ninety-six 
thousand  miles  per  hour  ! 

And  this  accords  with  what  we  know  of  the  deposi- 
tion of  the  Drift.  It  came  with  terrific  force.  It  smashed 
the  rocks  ;  it  tore  them  up  ;  it  rolled  them  over  on  one 
another  ;  it  drove  its  material  into  the  underlying  rocks  ; 
"  it  indented  it  into  them,"  says  one  authority,  already 
quoted. 

It  was  accompanied  by  inconceivable  winds — the  hur- 
ricanes and  cyclones  spoken  of  in  many  of  the  legends. 
Hence  we  find  the  loose  material  of  the  original  surface 
gathered  up  and  carried  into  the  drift-material  j^roper  ; 
hence  the  Drift  is  whii'led  about  in  the  wildest  confusion. 
Hence  it  fell  on  the  earth  like  a  great  snow-storm  driven 
by  the  wind.  It  drifted  into  all  hollows  ;  it  was  not  so 
thick  on,  or  it  was  entirely  absent  from,  the  tops  of  hills  ; 
it  fonned  tails,  precisely  as  snow  does,  on  the  leeward 
side  of  all  obstructions.  Glacier-ice  is  slow  and  plastic, 
6 


98 


THE  COMET. 


and  folds  around  such  impediments,  and  wears  them 
away  ;  the  wind  does  not.  Compare  the  following  repre- 
sentation  of   a  well-known  feature  of  the  Drift,  called 


Crag  and  Tail. — c,  crag ;  t,  till. 

"  crag  and  tail,"  taken  from  Geikie's  work,*  with  the 
drifts  formed  by  snow  on  the  leeward  side  of  fences  or 
houses. 

The  material  runs  in  streaks,  just  as  if  blown  by  vio- 
lent winds  : 

"When  cut  through  by  rivers,  or  denuded  by  the  ac- 
tion of  the  sea,  ridges  of  bowlders  are  often  seen  to  be 
inclosed  within  it.  Although  destitute  of  stratification, 
horizontal  lines  are  found,  indicating  differences  in  texture 
and  color."  f 

Geikie,  describing  the  bowlder-clay,  says  : 

"It  seems  to  have  come  from  regions  whence  it  is 
hard  to  see  how  they  could  have  been  borne  by  glaciers. 
As  a  rule  it  is  quite  unstratified,  but  traces  of  bedding  are 
not  uncommon." 

"  Sometimes  it  contains  worn  fossils,  and  fragments  of 
shells,  broken,  crushed,  and  striated  ;  sometimes  it  con- 
tains bands  of  stones  arranged  in  lines." 

In  short,  it  appears  as  if  it  were  gusts  and  great  whirls 
of  the  same  material  as  the  "  till,"  lifted  up  by  the  cy- 
clones and  mingled  with  blocks,  rocks,  bones,  sands,  fos- 
sils, earth,  peat,  and  other  matters,  picked  up  with  terri- 

*  "The  Great  Ice  Age,"  p.  18. 

f  "  American  Cyclopsedia,"  vol.  vi,  p.  112. 


THE   CONSEQUENCES   TO    THE  EARTH.  99 

ble  force  from  tlie  face  of  the  earth  and  jioured  down 
pell-mell  on  top  of  the  first  deposit  of  true  "  till." 

In  England  ninety-four  per  cent  of  these  stones  found 
in  this  bowldei'-clay  are  "  stranger  "  stones  ;  that  is  to  say, 
they  do  not  belong  to  the  drainage  area  in  which  they  are 
found,  but  must  have  been  carried  there  from  great  dis- 
tances. 

But  how  about  the  markings,  the  strim,  on  the  face  of 
the  surface-rocks  below  the  Drift  ?  The  answer  is  plain. 
Debris,  moving  at  the  rate  of  a  million  miles  an  hour, 
would  produce  just  such  markings. 

Dana  says  : 

"  The  sands  carried  by  the  winds  when  passing  over 
rocks  sometimes  loear  them  smooth,  or  cover  them  w^ith 
scratches  and  fiirroxcs,  as  observed  by  W.  P.  Blake  on 
granite  rocks  at  the  Pass  of  San  Bernardino,  in  California. 
Even  quartz  was  polished  and  garnets  were  left  project- 
ing upon  pedicels  of  feldspar.  Limestone  was  so  much 
worn  as  to  look  as  if  the  surface  had  been  removed  by 
solution.  Similar  effects  have  been  observed  by  Winchell 
in  the  Grand  Traverse  region,  Michigan.  Glass  in  the 
windows  of  houses  on  Cajje  Cod  sometimes  has  holes 
worn  through  it  by  the  same  means.  The  hint  from  nat- 
ure has  led  to  the  use  of  sand,  driven  by  a  blast,  with  or 
without  steam,  for  cutting  and  engraving  glass,  and  even 
for  cutting  and  carving  granite  and  other  hard  rocks."  * 

Gratacap  describes  the  rock  underneath  the  "  till "  as 
"polished  and  oftentimes  lustrous."  f 

But,  it  may  be  said,  if  it  be  true  that  debris,  driven  by 
a  terrible  force,  could  have  scratched  and  dented  the 
rocks,  could  it  have  made  long,  continuous  lines  and 
grooves  upon  them?  But  the  fact  is,  the  strim  on  the 
face  of  the  rocks  covered  by  the  Drift  are  not  continu- 

*  Dana's  "  Text-Book,"  p.  275. 

f  "Popular  Science  Monthly,"  January,  1878,  p.  320. 


100  THE  COMET. 

ous  ;  they  do  not  indicate  a  steady  and  constant  pressure, 
such  as  would  result  where  a  mountainous  mass  of  ice  had 
caught  a  rock  and  held  it,  as  it  were,  in  its  mighty  hand, 
and,  -thus  holding  it  steadily,  had  scored  the  rocks  with 
it  as  it  moved  forward. 

"The  groove  is  of  irregular  depth,  its  floor  rising  and 
falling,  as  though  hitches  had  occurred  when  it  was  first 
planed,  the  great  chisel  meeting  resistance,  or  being 
thrown  up  at  points  along  its  path."  * 

"What  other  results  would  follow  at  once  from  contact 
with  the  comet  ? 

We  have  seen  that,  to  produce  the  phenomena  of  the 
Glacial  age,  it  was  absolutely  necessary  that  it  must  have 
been  preceded  by  a  period  of  heat,  great  enough  to  va- 
porize all  the  streams  and  lakes  and  a  large  part  of  the 
ocean.  And  we  have  seen  that  no  mere  ice-hypothesis 
gives  us  any  clew  to  the  cause  of  this. 

Would  the  comet  furnish  us  with  such  heat  ?  Let  me 
call  another  witness  to  the  stand  : 

In  the  great  work  of  Amedee  Guillemin,  already  cited, 
we  read : 

"  On  the  other  hand,  it  seems  proved  that  the  light  of 
the  comets  is,  in  part,  at  least,  borrowed  from  the  sun. 
But  may  they  not  also  possess  a  light  of  their  own  ?  And, 
on  this  last  hypothesis,  is  this  brightness  owing  to  a  kind 
of  phosphorescence,  or  to  the  state  of  incandescence  of  the 
nucleus  ?  Truly,  if  the  nuclei  of  comets  be  incandescent, 
the  smallness  of  their  mass  would  eliminate  from  the  dan- 
ger of  their  contact  with  the  earth  only  one  element  of 
destruction  :  the  temperature  of  the  terrestrial  atmosphere 
would  he  raised  to  an  elevation  inimical  to  the  existence 
of  organized  beings  ;  and  we  should  only  escape  the  dan- 
ger of  a  mechanical  shock,  to  run  into  a  not  less  frightful 

*  Gratacap,  "  The  Ice  Age,"  in  "  Popular  Science  Monthly,"  January, 
1878,  p.  321. 


THE  CONSEQUENCES  TO   THE  EARTH.  101 

one  of  being  calcined  in  a  many  clays'  passage  throxiyh 
an  immense  furnace.''''  * 

Here  we  have  a  good  deal  more  heat  than  is  necessary 
to  account  for  that  vaporization  of  the  seas  of  the  globe 
which  seems  to  have  taken  place  during  the  Drift  Age. 

But  similar  effects  might  be  produced,  in  another  way, 
even  though  the  heat  of  the  comet  itself  was  inconsider- 
able. 

Suppose  the  comet,  or  a  large  part  of  it,  to  have  fallen 
into  the  sun.  The  arrested  motion  would  be  converted 
into  heat.  The  material  would  feed  the  combustion  of 
the  sun.  Some  have  theorized  that  the  sun  is  maintained 
by  the  fall  of  cometic  matter  into  it.  What  would  be 
the  result  ? 

Mr.  Proctor  notes  that  in  18G6  a  star,  in  the  constel- 
lation Northern  Cross,  suddenly  shone  with  eight  hundred 
times  its  former  luster,  afterward  rapidly  diminishing  in 
luster.  In  1876  a  new  star  in  the  constellation  Cygnus 
became  visible,  subsequently  fading  again  so  as  to  be 
only  perceptible  by  means  of  a  telescope  ;  the  luster  of 
this  star  must  have  increased  from  five  hundred  to  many 
thousand  times. 

Mr.  Proctor  claims  that  should  our  sun  similarly  in- 
crease in  luster  even  one  hundred-fold,  the  glowing  heat 
would  destroy  all  vegetable  and  animal  life  on  earth. 

Thei'e  is  no  difficulty  in  seeing  our  way  to  heat 
enough,  if  we  concede  that  a  comet  really  struck  the 
earth  or  fell  into  the  sun.  The  trouble  is  in  the  other 
direction — we  would  have  too  much  heat. 

We  shall  see,  hereafter,  that  there  is  evidence  in  our 
rocks  that  in  two  different  ages  of  the  world,  millions  of 
years  before  the   Drift  period,  the  whole  surface  of  the 

*  "  The  Heavens,"  p.  260. 


102  THE   COMET. 

earth  was  actually  fused  and  melted,  probably  by  cometic 
contact. 

This  earth  of  ours  is  really  a  great  powder-magar.inc  ; 
there  is  enough  inflammable  and  explosive  material  about 
it  to  blow  it  into  shreds  at  any  moment. 

Sir  Charles  Lyell  quotes,  approvingly,  the  thought  of 
Pliny  :  "  It  is  an  amazement  that  our  world,  so  full  of 
combustible  elements,  stands  a  moment  unexploded." 

It  needs  but  an  infinitesimal  increase  in  the  quantity 
of  oxygen  in  the  air  to  produce  a  combustion  which 
would  melt  all  things.  In  pure  oxygen,  steel  burns  like  a 
candle-wick.  Nay,  it  is  not  necessary  to  increase  the 
amount  of  oxygen  in  the  air  to  produce  terrible  results. 
It  has  been  shown  *  that,  of  our  forty-five  miles  of  atmos- 
phere, one  fifth,  or  a  stratum  of  nine  miles  in  thickness, 
is  oxygen.  A  shock,  or  an  electrical  or  other  convulsion, 
which  would  even  partially  disarrange  or  decompose  this 
combination,  and  send  an  increased  quantity  of  oxygen, 
the  heavier  gas,  to  the  earth,  would  wrap  everything  in 
flames.  Or  the  same  effects  might  follow  from  any  great 
change  in  the  constitution  of  the  water  of  the  world. 
Water  is  compo:cd  of  eight  parts  of  oxygen  and  one  part 
of  hydrogen.  "  The  intensest  heat  by  far  ever  yet  pro- 
duced by  the  blow-pipe  is  by  the  combustion  of  these  two 
gases."  And  Dr.  Robert  Hare,  of  Philadelphia,  found 
that  the  combination  which  produced  the  intensest  heat 
was  that  in  which  the  two  gases  were  in  the  precise  pro- 
portions found  in  icater.\ 

We  may  suppose  that  this  vast  heat,  whether  it  came 
from  the  comet,  or  the  increased  action  of  the  sun,  pre- 
ceded the  fall  of  the  debris  of  the  comet  by  a  few  min- 
utes or  a  few  hours.     We  have  seen  the  surface-rocks 

*  "Science  and  Genesis,"  p.  125.  \  Ibid.,  p.  127. 


THE   CONSEQUENCES   TO    THE  EARTH.  103 

described  as  lustrous.  The  heat  may  not  have  been 
^reat  enough  to  melt  them — it  may  merely  have  softened 
them  ;  but  when  the  mixture  of  clay,  gravel,  striated 
rocks,  and  earth-sweepings  fell  and  rested  on  them,  they 
were  at  once  hardened  and  almost  baked  ;  and  thus  we 
can  account  for  the  fact  that  the  "  till,"  which  lies  next  to 
the  rocks,  is  so  hard  and  tough,  compared  with  the  rest  of 
the  Drift,  that  it  is  impossible  to  blast  it,  and  exceedingly 
difficult  even  to  pick  it  to  pieces;  it  is  more  feared  by 
workmen  and  contractors  than  any  of  the  true  rocks. 

Professor  Hartt  shows  that  there  is  evidence  that 
some  cause,  prior  to  but  closely  connected  with  the  Drift, 
did  decompose  the  surface-rocks  underneath  the  Drift 
to  great  depths,  changing  their  chemical  composition  and 
appearance.     Professor  Hartt  says  : 

"  In  Brazil,  and  in  the  United  States  in  the  vicinity  of 
ISTe^  York  city,  the  surface-rocks,  under  the  Drift,  are 
decomposed  from  a  depth  of  a  few  inches  to  that  of  a 
hundred  feet.  The  feldspar  has  been  converted  into  slate, 
and  the  mica  has  parted  lolth  its  iron.''''  * 

Professor  Hartt  tries  to  account  for  this  metamorpho- 
sis by  supposing  it  to  have  been  produced  by  warm  rains  ! 
But  why  should  there  be  warm  rains  at  this  particular 
period?  And  why,  if  warm  rains  occurred  in  all  ages, 
were  not  all  the  earlier  rocks  similarly  changed  while  they 
were  at  the  surface  ? 

Heusser  and  Clarez  suppose  this  decomposition  of  the 
rocks  to  be  due  to  nitric  acid.  But  where  did  the  nitric 
acid  come  from  ? 

In  short,  here  is  the  proof  of  the  presence  on  the  earth, 
just  before  the  Drift  struck  it,  of  that  conflagration  which 
we  shall  find  described  in  so  many  legends. 

"  "  The  Geology  of  Brazil,"  p.  25, 


104  THE  COMET. 

And  certainly  the  presence  of  ice  could  not  decora- 
pose  rocks  a  hundred  feet  deep,  and  change  their  chem- 
ical constitution.     Nothing  but  heat  could  do  it. 

But  we  have  seen  that  the  comet  is  self-luminous — 
that  is,  it  is  in  process  of  combustion  ;  it  emits  great 
gushes  and  spouts  of  luminous  gases  ;  its  nucleus  is  envel- 
oped in  a  cloak  of  gases.  What  effect  would  these  gases 
have  upon  our  atmosphere  ? 

First,  they  would  be  destructive  to  animal  life.  But 
it  does  not  follow  that  they  would  cover  the  whole  earth. 
If  they  did,  all  life  must  have  ceased.  They  may  have 
fallen  in  places  here  and  there,  in  great  sheets  or  jDatches, 
and  have  caused,  until  they  burned  themselves  out,  the 
conflagrations  which  the  traditions  tell  us  accompanied 
the  great  disaster. 

Secondly,  by  adding  increased  proportions  to  some  of 
the  elements  of  our  atmosphere  they  may  have  heli)ed 
to  produce  the  marked  difference  between  the  pre-glacial 
and  our  present  climate. 

What  did  these  gases  consist  of  ? 

Here  that  great  discovery,  the  spectroscope,  comes  to 
our  aid.  By  it  we  are  able  to  tell  the  elements  that  are 
being  consumed  in  remote  stars;  by  it  we  have  learned 
that  comets  are  in  part  self-luminous,  and  in  part  shine 
by  the  reflected  light  of  the  sun  ;  by  it  we  are  even  able 
to  identify  the  very  gases  that  are  in  a  state  of  combustion 
in  comets. 

In  Schellen's  great  work*  I  find  a  cut  (see  next  page) 
comparing  the  spectra  of  carbon  with  the  light  emitted 
by  two  comets  observed  in  1868 — Winnecke's  comet  and 
Brorsen's  comet. 

Here  we  see  that  the  self-luminous  parts  of  these  com- 

*  "  Spectrum  Analysis,"  p.  396. 


THE  CONSEQUENCES   TO    THE  EARTH. 


105 


ets  burned  with  substantially  the  same  spectrum  as  that 
emitted  by  burning  carbon.  The  inference  is  irresistible 
that  these  comets  were  wrapped  in  great  masses  of  carbon 
in  a  state  of  combustion.  This  is  the  conclusion  reached 
by  Dr.  Schellen. 

Padre  Secchi,  the  great  Roman  astronomer,  examined 
Dr.  Winnecke's  comet  on  the  21st  of  June,  1868,  and  con- 


E 

Solar 
b 

Spectrum 

F 

I 

1 

1 

1 

1 

looo 

IIOO 

I200 

1300 

1400 

1500 

1000 

1700 

It)  00 

1         1         1         1        1        1         ,        r        1         1        1         <         1         1        1         1        1        1        1         1         1 

Spectrum  ol  Carbon  in  01!ve-0il. 


Winnecke's  Comet  II. 

1868. 

IH^^H^^^^^H^^^^I 

■ 

H  ^^^^^^H^^^^^^^^^^H 

Brorsen's  Comet  I.     18 


eluded  that  the  light  from  the  self-luminous  part  was  pro- 
duced by  carbureted  hydrogen. 

We  shall  see  that  the  legends  of  the  different  races 
speak  of  the  poison  that  accompanied  the  comet,  and  by 
which  great  multitudes  were  slain  ;  the  very  waters  that 


106  THE  COMET. 

first  flowed  through  the  Drift,  we  are  told,  were  poisoa- 
ous.  We  have  but  to  remember  that  carbureted  hydro- 
gen is  the  deadly  fire-damp  of  the  miners  to  realize  what 
effect  great  gusts  of  it  must  have  had  on  animal  life. 

We  are  told  *  that  it  burns  with  a  yellow  flame  when 
subjected  to  great  heat,  and  some  of  the  legends,  we  will 
see  hereafter,  speak  of  the  "  yellow  hair "  of  the  comet 
that  struck  the  earth. 

And  we  are  further  told  that,  "  when  it,  carbureted 
hydrogen,  is  mixed  in  due  proportion  with  oxygen  or 
atmospheric  air,  a  com2JOund  is  produced  Avhich  explodes 
with  the  electric  spark  or  the  approach  of  flame."  An- 
other form  of  carbureted  hydrogen,  olefiant  gas,  is  deadly 
to  life,  burns  with  a  white  light,  and  when  mixed  with 
three  or  four  volumes  of  oxygen,  or  ten  or  twelve  of 
air,  it  explodes  with  terrific  violence. 

We  shall  see,  hereafter,  that  many  of  the  legends  tell 
us  that,  as  the  comet  approached  the  earth,  that  is,  as  it 
entered  our  atmosphere  and  combined  with  it,  it  gave 
forth  world-appalling  noises,  thunders  beyond  all  earthly 
thunders,  roarings,  bowlings,  and  hissings,  that  shook  the 
globe.  If  a  comet  did  come,  surrounded  by  volumes  of 
carbureted  hydrogen,  or  cai'bon  combined  with  hydrogen, 
the  moment  it  reached  far  enough  into  our  atmosphere  to 
supply  it  with  the  requisite  amount  of  oxygen  or  atmos- 
pheric air,  precisely  such  dreadful  explosions  would  oc- 
cur, accompanied  by  noises  similar  to  those  described  in 
the  legends. 

Let  us  go  a  step  further  : 

Let  us  try  to  conceive  the  effects  of  the  fall  of  the 
material  of  the  comet  upon  the  earth. 

We  have  seen  terrible  rain-storms,  hail-storms,  snow- 


*  "  American  Cyclopaedia,"  vol.  iii,  p.  776. 


THE  CONSEQUENCES   TO   THE  EARTH.  107 

Storms  ;  but  fancy  a  storm  of  stones  and  gravel  and  clay- 
dust  ! — not  a  mere  shower  either,  but  falling  in  black 
masses,  darkening  the  heavens,  vast  enough  to  cover  the 
world  in  many  places  hundreds  of  feet  in  thickness  ;  lev- 
eling valleys,  tearing  away  and  grinding  down  hills, 
changing  the  w^hole  aspect  of  the  habitable  globe.  With- 
out and  above  it  roars  the  earthquaking  voice  of  the  ter- 
rible explosions  ;  through  the  drifts  of  debris  glimpses 
are  caught  of  the  glaring  and  burning  monster  ;  while 
through  all  and  over  all  is  an  unearthly  heat,  under  which 
rivers,  ponds,  lakes,  springs,  disappear  as  if  by  magic. 

Now,  reader,  try  to  grasp  the  meaning  of  all  this 
description.  Do  not  merely  read  the  words.  To  read 
aright,  upon  any  subject,  you  must  read  below  the  words, 
above  the  words,  and  take  in  all  the  relations  that  sur- 
round the  words.     So  read  this  record. 

Look  out  at  the  scene  around  you.  Here  are  trees 
fifty  feet  high.  Imagine  an  instantaneous  descent  of 
granite-sand  and  gravel  sufficient  to  smash  and  crush 
these  trees  to  the  ground,  to  bury  their  trunks,  and  to 
cover  the  earth  one  hundred  to  five  hundred  feet  higher 
than  the  elevation  to  which  their  tops  now  reach  !  And 
this  not  alone  here  in  your  garden,  or  over  your  farm, 
or  over  your  township,  or  over  yoiar  county,  or  over 
your  State  ;  but  over  the  whole  continent  in  which  you 
dwell — in  short,  over  the  greater  part  of  the  habitable 
world  ! 

Are  there  any  words  that  can  draw,  even  faintly,  such 
a  picture — its  terror,  its  immensity,  its  horrors,  its  de- 
structiveness,  its  surpassal  of  all  earthly  experience  and 
imagination  ?  And  this  human  ant-hill,  the  world,  how 
insignificant  would  it  be  in  the  grasp  of  such  a  catas- 
trophe !  Its  laws,  its  temples,  its  libraries,  its  religions, 
its  armies,  its  mighty  nations,  would  be  but  as  the  veriest 


108  THE  COMET. 

stubble — dried  grass,  leaves,  rubbish — crushed,  smashed, 
buried,  under  this  heaven-rain  of  horrors. 

But,  lo  !  through  the  darkness,  the  wretches  not  beaten 
down  and  whelmed  in  the  debi'is,  but  scurrying  to  mount- 
ain-caves for  refuge,  have  a  new  terror  :  the  cry  passes 
from  lip  to  lip,  "  The  world  is  on  fire  !  " 

The  head  of  the  comet  sheds  down  tire.  Its  gases 
have  fallen  in  great  volumes  on  the  earth  ;  they  ignite  ; 
amid  the  whirling  and  rushing  of  the  debris,  caught  in 
cyclones,  rises  the  glare  of  a  Titanic  conflagration.  The 
winds  beat  the  rocks  against  the  rocks  ;  they  jjick  up 
sand-heaps,  peat-beds,  and  bowlders,  and  whirl  them 
madly  in  the  air.  The  heat  increases.  The  rivers,  the 
lakes,  the  ocean  itself,  evajiorate. 

And  poor  humanity  !  Burned,  bruised,  wild,  crazed, 
stumbling,  blown  about  like  feathers  in  the  hurricanes, 
smitten  by  mighty  rocks,  they  perish  by  the  million  ;  a 
few  only  reach  the  shelter  of  the  caverns  ;  and  thence, 
glaring  backward,  look  out  over  the  ruins  of  a  destroyed 
world. 

And  not  humanity  alone  has  fled  to  these  hiding- 
places  :  the  terrified  denizens  of  the  forest,  the  domestic 
animals  of  the  fields,  with  the  instinct  which  in  great 
tempests  has  driven  them  into  the  houses  of  men,  follow 
the  refugees  into  the  caverns.  We  shall  see  all  this  de- 
picted in  the  legends. 

The  first  effect  of  the  great  heat  is  the  vaporization 
of  the  waters  of  the  earth  ;  but  this  is  arrested  long  before 
it  has  completed  its  work. 

Still  the  heat  is  intense — how  long  it  lasts,  who  shall 
tell  ?     An  Arabian  legend  indicates  years. 

The  stones  having  ceased  to  fall,  the  few  who  have 
escaped — and  they  are  few  indeed,  for  many  are  shut  up 
for  ever  by  the  clay-dust  and  gravel  in  theu*  hiding-places. 


THE  CONSEQUENCES   TO   THE  EARTH.  109 

and  on  many  others  the  convulsions  of  the  earth  have 
shaken  down  the  rocky  roofs  of  the  caves  —  the  few 
survivors  come  out,  or  dig  their  way  out,  to  look  upon  a 
changed  and  bhisted  world.  No  cloud  is  in  the  sky,  no 
rivers  or  lakes  are  on  the  earth  ;  only  the  deep  springs 
of  the  caverns  are  left ;  the  sun,  a  ball  of  tire,  glares  in 
the  bronze  heavens.  It  is  to  this  period  that  the  Norse 
legend  of  Mimer's  well,  where  Odin  gave  an  eye  for  a 
drink  of  water,  refers. 

But  gradually  the  heat  begins  to  dissipate.  This  is  a 
signal  for  tremendous  electrical  action.  Condensation  com- 
mences. Never  has  the  air  held  such  incalculable  masses 
of  moisture  ;  never  has  heaven's  artillery  so  rattled  and 
roared  since  earth  began  !  Condensation  means  clouds. 
We  will  find  hereafter  a  whole  body  of  legends  about  "  the 
stealing  of  the  clouds "  and  their  restoration.  The  veil 
thickens.  The  sun's  rays  are  shut  out.  It  grows  colder  ; 
more  condensation  follows.  The  heavens  darken.  Louder 
and  louder  bellows  the  thunder.  We  shall  see  the  light- 
nings represented,  in  myth  after  myth,  as  the  arrows  of 
the  rescuing  demi-god  who  saves  the  world.  The  heat 
has  carried  up  perhaps  one  fourth  of  all  the  water  of  the 
world  into  the  air.  Now  it  is  condensed  into  cloud. 
We  know  how  an  ordinary  storm  darkens  the  heavens. 
In  this  case  it  is  black  night.  A  pall  of  dense  cloud, 
many  miles  in  thickness,  enfolds  the  earth.  No  sun,  no 
moon,  no  stars,  can  be  seen.  "Darkness  is  on  the  face 
of  the  deep."  Day  has  ceased  to  be.  Men  stumble 
against  each  other.  All  this  we  shall  find  depicted  in 
the  legends.  The  overloaded  atmosphere  begins  to  dis- 
charge itself.  The  great  work  of  restoring  the  waters  of 
the  ocean  to  the  ocean  begins.  It  grows  colder — colder 
— colder.  The  pouring  rain  turns  into  snow,  and  settles 
on  all  the  uplands  and  north  countries  ;  snow  falls  on 


110  THE  COMET. 

snow  ;  gigantic  snow-beds  are  formed,  which  gradually 
solidify  into  ice.  While  no  mile-thick  ice-sheet  descends 
to  the  Mediterranean  or  the  Gulf  of  Mexico,  glaciers  in- 
trude into  all  the  valleys,  and  the  flora  and  fauna  of  the 
temperate  regions  become  arctic  ;  that  is  to  say,  only 
those  Tarieties  of  plants  and  animals  survive  in  those 
regions  that  are  able  to  stand  the  cold,  and  these  we  now 
call  arctic. 

In  the  midst  of  this  darkness  and  cold  and  snow,  the 
remnants  of  poor  humanity  wander  over  the  face  of  the 
desolated  world  ;  stumbling,  awe-struck,  but  filled  with  an 
insatiable  hunger  which  drives  them  on  ;  living  upon  the 
bark  of  the  few  trees  that  have  escaped,  or  on  the  bodies 
of  the  animals  that  have  perished,  and  even  upon  one  an- 
other. 

All  this  we  shall  find  plainly  depicted  in  the  legends 
of  mankind,  as  we  proceed. 

Steadily,  steadily,  steadily — for  days,  weeks,  months, 
years — the  rains  and  snows  fall  ;  and,  as  the  clouds  are 
drained,  they  become  thinner  and  thinner,  and  the  light 
increases. 

It  has  now  grown  so  light  that  the  wanderers  can 
mark  the  difference  between  night  and  day.  "And  the 
evening  and  the  morning  were  the  first  day." 

Day  by  day  it  grows  lighter  and  warmer  ;  the  piled-up 
snows  begin  to  melt.  It  is  an  age  of  tremendous  floods. 
All  the  low-lying  parts  of  the  continents  are  covered  with 
water.  Brooks  become  mighty  rivers,  and  rivers  are 
floods  ;  the  Drift  debris  is  cut  into  by  the  waters,  re-ar- 
ranged, piled  up  in  what  is  called  the  stratified,  second- 
ary, or  Champlain  drift.  Enormous  river-valleys  are  cut 
out  of  the  gravel  and  clay. 

The  seeds  and  roots  of  trees  and  grasses,  uncovered 
by   the   rushing   torrents,    and   catching  the  increasing 


THE  CONSEQUENCES   TO    THE  EARTH.  HI 

warmth,  begin  to  put  forth  green  leaves.  The  sad  and 
parti-colored  earth,  covered  with  white,  red,  or  blue  clays 
and  gravels,  once  more  wears  a  fringe  of  green. 

The  light  increases.  The  warmth  lifts  up  part  of  the 
water  already  cast  down,  and  the  outflow  of  the  steaming 
ice-fields,  and  pours  it  down  again  in  prodigious  floods.  It 
is  an  age  of  storms. 

The  people  who  have  escaped  gather  together.  They 
knoio  the  sun  is  coming  hack.  They  know  this  desolation 
is  to  pass  away.  They  build  great  fires  and  make  human 
sacrifices  to  bring  back  the  sun.  They  point  and  guess 
where  he  will  appear  ;  for  they  have  lost  all  knowledge 
of  the  cardinal  points.  And  all  this  is  told  in  the  le- 
gends. 

At  last  the  great,  the  godlike,  the  resplendent  lumi- 
nary breaks  through  the  clouds  and  looks  again  upon  the 
wrecked  earth. 

Oh,  what  joy,  beyond  all  words,  comes  upon  those 
who  see  him  !  They  fall  upon  their  faces.  They  worshij) 
him  whom  the  dread  events  have  taught  to  recognize  as 
the  great  god  of  life  and  light.  They  burn  or  cast  down 
their  animal  gods  of  the  pre-glacial  time,  and  then  begins 
that  world-wide  worship  of  the  sun  which  has  continued 
down  to  our  own  times. 

And  all  this,  too,  we  shall  find  told  in  the  legends. 

And  from  that  day  to  this  we  live  under  the  influence 
of  the  effects  pi'oduced  by  the  comet.  The  mild,  eternal 
summer  of  the  Tertiary  age  is  gone.  The  battle  between 
the  sun  and  the  ice-sheets  continues.  Every  north  wind 
brings  us  the  breath  of  the  snow  ;  every  south  wind  is  part 
of  the  sun's  contribution  to  undo  the  comet's  work.  A 
continual  amelioration  of  climate  has  been  going  on  since 
the  Glacial  age  ;  and,  if  no  new  catastrophe  falls  on  the 
earth,  our  remote  posterity  will  yet  see  the  last  snow-bank 


112  THE  COMET. 

of  Greenland  melted,  and  the  climate  of  the  Eocene  re- 
established in  Spitzbergen, 

"  It  has  been  suggested  that  the  warmth  of  the  Ter- 
tiary climate  was  simply  the  effect  of  the  residual  heat  of 
a  globe  cooling  from  incandescence,  but  many  facts  dis- 
prove this.  For  example,  the  fossil  plants  found  in  our 
Lower  Cretaceous  rocks  in  Central  North  America  indi- 
cate a  temperate  climate  in  latitude  35°  to  40°  in  the  Cre- 
taceous age.  The  coal-flora,  too,  and  the  beds  of  coal, 
indicate  a  moist,  equable,  and  warm  but  not  hot  climate 
in  the  Carboniferous  age,  millions  of  years  before  the 
Tertiary,  and  three  thousand  miles  farther  south  than  lo- 
calities where  magnolias,  tulip-trees,  and  deciduous  cy- 
presses, grew  in  the  latter  age.  Some  learned  and  cau- 
tious geologists  even  assert  that  there  have  been  several 
Ice  periods,  one  as  far  back  as  the  Devonian."  * 

The  ice-fields  and  wild  climate  of  the  poles,  and  the 
cold  which  descends  annually  over  Europe  and  North 
America,  represent  the  residuum  of  the  refrigeration 
caused  by  the  evaporation  due  to  the  comet's  heat,  and 
the  long  absence  of  the  sun  during  the  age  of  darkness. 
Every  visitation  of  a  comet  would,  therefore,  necessarily 
eventuate  in  a  glacial  age,  which  in  time  would  entirely 
pass  away.  And  our  storms  are  bred  of  the  conflict  be- 
tween the  heat  and  cold  of  the  different  latitudes.  Hence, 
it  may  be,  that  the  Tertiary  climate  represented  the  true 
climate  of  the  earth,  undisturbed  by  comet  catastrophes  ; 
a  climate  equable,  mild,  warm,  stormless.  Think  what  a 
world  this  would  be  without  tempests,  cyclones,  ice,  snow, 
or  cold  ! 

Let  us  turn  now  to  the  evidences  that  man  dwelt  on 
the  earth  during  the  Drift,  and  that  he  has  preserved 
recollections  of  the  comet  to  this  day  in  his  myths  and 
lesrends. 


"Popular  Science  Monthly,"  July,  1876,  p.  283. 


THE  NATURE  OF  MYTHS.  1J3 


PART  III. 
^\]t    £  c  9  c  n  b  s . 


CHAPTER  I. 

TEE    NATUEE    OF   MYTHS. 

In  a  primitive  people  the  miud  of  one  generation  pre- 
cisely repeats  the  minds  of  all  former  generations  ;  the 
construction  of  the  intellectual  nature  varies  no  more, 
from  age  to  age,  than  the  form  of  the  body  or  the  color 
of  the  skin  ;  the  generations  feel  the  same  emotions,  and 
think  the  same  thoughts,  and  use  the  same  expressions. 
And  this  is  to  be  expected,  for  the  brain  is  as  much  a 
part  of  the  inheritable,  material  organization  as  the  color 
of  the  eyes  or  the  shape  of  the  nose. 

The  minds  of  men  move  automatically  :  no  man  thinks 
because  he  intends  to  think  ;  he  thinks,  as  he  hungers  and 
thirsts,  under  a  great  pi'imal  necessity  ;  his  thoughts  come 
out  from  the  inner  depths  of  his  being  as  the  flower  is 
developed  by  forces  rising  through  the  roots  of  the  plant. 

The  female  bird  says  to  herself,  "  The  time  is  propi- 
tious, and  now,  of  my  own  free  will,  and  under  the  opera- 
tion of  my  individual  judgment,  I  will  lay  a  nestful  of 
eggs  and  hatch  a  brood  of  children."  But  it  is  uncon- 
scious that  it  is  moved  by  a  physical  necessity,  which  has 
constrained  all  its  ancestors  from  the  beginning  of  time, 


114  THE  LEGENDS. 

and  which  will  constrain  all  its  posterity  to  the  end  of 
time  ;  that  its  will  is  nothing  more  than  an  expression  of 
age,  develoi^ment,  sunlight,  food,  and  "  the  skyey  influ- 
ences." If  it  were  otherwise  it  would  be  in  the  power  of 
a  generation  to  arrest  the  life  of  a  race. 

All  great  thoughts  are  inspirations  of  God.  They  are 
part  of  the  mechanism  by  which  he  advances  the  race  ; 
they  are  new  varieties  created  out  of  old  genera. 

There  come  bursts  of  creative  force  in  history,  when 
great  thoughts  are  born,  and  then  again  Brahma,  as  the 
Hindoos  say,  goes  to  sleep  for  ages. 

But,  when  the  fever  of  creation  comes,  the  poet,  the 
inventor,  or  the  philosopher  can  no  more  arrest  the  de- 
velopment of  his  own  thoughts  than  the  female  bird,  by 
her  will-power,  can  stop  the  growth  of  the  ova  within  her, 
or  arrest  the  fever  in  the  blood  which  forces  her  to  incu- 
bation. 

The  man  vrho  wrote  the  Shakespeare  plays  recognized 
this  involuntary  operation  of  even  his  own  transcendent 
intellect,  when  he  said  : 

"  Our  poesy  is  a  gum  which  oozes 
From  whence  'tis  nourished." 

It  came  as  the  Arabian  tree  distilled  its  "  medicinal 
gum "  ;  it  was  the  mere  expression  of  an  internal  force, 
as  much  beyond  his  control  as  the  production  of  the  gum 
was  beyond  the  control  of  the  tree. 

But  in  primitive  races  mind  repeats  mind  for  thou- 
sands of  years.  If  a  tale  is  told  at  a  million  hearth-fires, 
the  probabilities  are  small,  indeed,  that  any  innovation  at 
one  hearth-fire,  however  ingenious,  will  work  its  way  into 
and  modify  the  narration  at  all  the  rest.  There  is  no 
printing-press  to  make  the  thoughts  of  one  man  the 
thoughts  of  thousands.     While  the  innovator  is  modify- 


TEE  NATURE  OF  MYTHS.  115 

ing  the  tale,  to  his  own  satisfaction,  to  his  immediate 
circle  of  hearers,  the  narrative  is  being  repeated  in  its 
unchanged  form  at  all  the  rest.  The  doctrine  of  chances 
is  against  innovation.    The  majority  rules. 

When,  however,  a  marvelous  tale  is  told  to  the  new 
gensration — to  the  little  ones  sitting  around  with  open 
eyes  and  gaping  mouths — they  naturally  ask,  "  Where  did 
all  this  occur  ?  "  The  narrator  must  satisfy  this  curiosity, 
and  so  he  replies,  "  On  yonder  mountain-top,"  or  "  In  yon- 
der cave." 

The  story  has  come  down  without  its  geography,  and 
a  new  geography  is  given  it. 

Again,  an  ancient  word  or  name  may  have  a  significa- 
tion in  the  language  in  which  the  story  is  told  different 
from  that  which  it  possessed  in  the  original  dialect,  and, 
in  the  effort  to  make  the  old  fact  and  the  new  language 
harmonize,  the  story-teller  is  forced,  gradually,  to  modify 
the  narrative  ;  and,  as  this  lingual  difficulty  occurs  at- 
every  fireside,  at  every  telling,  an  ingenious  explanation 
comes  at  last  to  be  generally  accepted,  and  the  ancient 
myth  remains  dressed  in  a  new  suit  of  linguistic  clothes. 

But,  as  a  rule,  simple  races  repeat ;  they  do  not  invent. 

One  hundred  years  ago  the  highest  faith  was  placed 
in  written  history,  while  the  utmost  contempt  was  felt 
for  all  legends.  Whatever  had  been  written  down  w^as 
regarded  as  certainly  true  ;  whatever  had  not  been  writ- 
ten down  was  necessarily  false. 

We  are  reminded  of  that  intellectual  old  brute.  Dr. 
Samuel  Johnson,  trampling  poor  Macpherson  under  foot, 
like  an  enraged  elephant,  for  daring  to  say  that  he  had 
collected  from  the  mountaineers  of  wild  Scotland  the 
poems  of  Ossian,  and  that  they  had  been  transmitted, 
from  mouth  to  mouth,  through  ages.  But  the  great  epic 
of  the  son  of  Fingal  will  survive,  part  of  the  widening 


116  THE  LEGENDS. 

heritage  of  humanity,  while  Johnson  is  rememhered  only 
as  a  coarse-souled,  ill-mannered  incident  in  the  develop- 
ment of  the  great  English  people. 

But  as  time  rolled  on  it  was  seen  that  the  greater  part 
of  history  was  simply  recorded  legends,  while  all  the  rest 
represented  the  passions  of  factions,  the  hates  of  sects, 
or  the  servility  and  venality  of  historians.  Men  per- 
ceived that  the  common  belief  of  antiquity,  as  expressed 
in  universal  tradition,  was  much  more  likely  to  be  true 
than  the  written  opinions  of  a  few  prejudiced  individuals. 

And  then  grave  and  able  men, — philosophers,  scien- 
tists,— were  seen  with  note-books  and  pencils,  going  out 
into  Hindoo  villages,  into  German  cottages,  into  High- 
land huts,  into  Indian  tepees,  in  short,  into  all  lands,  taking 
down  with  the  utmost  care,  accuracy,  and  respect,  the 
fairy-stories,  myths,  and  legends  of  the  people  ; — as  re- 
peated by  old  peasant-women,  "  the  knitters  in  the  sun," 
or  by  "  gray-haired  warriors,  famoused  for  fights." 

And,  when  they  came  to  put  these  narratives  in  due 
form,  and,  as  it  were,  in  parallel  columns,  it  became  ap- 
parent that  they  threw  great  floods  of  light  upon  the  his- 
tory of  the  world,  and  especially  upon  the  question  of  the 
unity  of  the  race.  They  proved  that  all  the  nations  were 
repeating  the  same  stories,  in  some  cases  in  almost  identi- 
cal words,  just  as  their  ancestors  had  heard  them,  in  some 
most  ancient  land,  in  "  the  dark  background  and  abysm 
of  time,"  when  the  progenitors  of  the  German,  Gaul,  Gael, 
Greek,  Roman,  Hindoo,  Persian,  Egyptian,  Arabian,  and 
the  red-people  of  America,  dwelt  together  under  the  same 
roof-tree  and  used  the  same  language. 

But,  above  all,  these  legends  prove  the  absolute  fidel- 
ity of  the  memory  of  the  races. 

We  are  told  that  the  bridge-piles  driven  by  the  Ro- 
mans, two  thousand  years  ago,  in  the  rivers  of  Europe, 


THE  NATURE  OF  MYTHS.  117 

from  which  the  surrounding  waters  have  excluded  the  de- 
caying atmosphere,  have  remained  altogether  unchanged 
in  their  condition.  If  this  has  been  the  case  for  two 
thousand  years,  why  would  they  not  remain  unchanged 
for  ten  thousand,  for  a  hundred  thousand  years  ?  If  the 
ice  in  which  that  Siberian  mammoth  was  incased  had 
preserved  it  intact  for  a  hundred  years,  or  a  thousand 
years,  why  might  it  not  have  preserved  it  for  ten  thou- 
sand, for  a  hundred  thousand  years  ? 

Place  a  universal  legend  in  the  minds  of  a  race,  let 
them  repeat  it  from  generation  to  generation,  and  time 
ceases  to  be  an  element  in  the  i^roblem. 

Legend  has  one  great  foe  to  its  perpetuation — civiliza- 
tion. 

Civilization  brings  with  it  a  contempt  for  everything 
which  it  can  not  understand  ;  skepticism  becomes  the  syno- 
nym for  intelligence  ;  men  no  longer  repeat ;  they  doubt ; 
they  dissect ;  they  sneer  ;  they  reject ;  they  invent.  If  the 
myth  survives  this  treatment,  the  poets  take  it  up  and 
make  it  their  stock  in  trade  :  they  decorate  it  in  a  mas- 
querade of  frippery  and  finery,  feathers  and  furbelows, 
like  a  clown  dressed  for  a  fancy  ball  ;  and  the  poor  bar- 
barian legend  survives  at  last,  if  it  survives  at  all,  like 
the  Conflagration  in  Ovid  or  King  Arthur  in  Tennyson — 
a  hippopotamus  smothered  in  flowers,  jewels,  and  laces. 

Hence  we  find  the  legends  of  the  primitive  American 
Indians  adhering  quite  closely  to  the  events  of  the  past, 
while  the  myths  that  survive  at  all  among  the  civilized 
nations  of  Europe  are  found  in  garbled  forms,  and  only 
among  the  peasantry  of  remote  districts. 

In  the  future  more  and  more  attention  will  be  given 
to  the  myths  of  primitive  races  ;  they  will  be  accounted  as 
more  reliable,  and  as  reaching  farther  back  in  time  than 
many  things  which  we  call  history.    Thoughtful  men  will 


118  THE  LEGENDS. 

analyze  tbem,  despising  nothing  ;  like  a  chemist  who  re- 
solves some  compound  object  into  its  original  elements 
—  the  very  combination  constituting  a  history  of  the 
object. 

H.  II.  Bancroft  describes  myths  as — 

"A  mass  of  fragmentary  truth  and  fiction,  not  open 
to  rationalistic  criticism  ;  a  partition  wall  of  allegories, 
built  of  dead  facts  cemented  with  wild  fancies  ;  it  looms 
ever  between  the  immeasurable  and  the  measurable  past." 

But  he  adds  : 

"  Never  was  there  a  time  in  the  history  of  philosophy 
when  the  character,  customs,  and  beliefs  of  aboriginal 
man,  and  everything  appertaining  to  him,  were  held  in 
such  high  esteem  by  scholars  as  at  present." 

"  It  is  now  a  recognized  principle  of  philosophy  that 
no  religious  belief,  however  crude,  nor  any  historical  tra- 
dition, however  absurd,  can  be  held  by  the  majority  of  a 
people  for  any  considerable  time  as  true,  without  having 
had  in  the  beginning  some  foundation  in  fact."  * 

An  universal  myth  points  to  two  conclusions  : 

First,  that  it  is  based  on  some  fact. 

Secondly,  that  it  dates  back,  in  all  probability,  to  the 
time  when  the  ancestors  of  the  races  possessing  it  had  not 
yet  separated. 

A  myth  should  be  analyzed  carefully  ;  the  fungi  that 
have  attached  themselves  to  it  should  be  brushed  off  ;  the 
core  of  fact  should  be  separated  from  the  decorations  and 
errors  of  tradition. 

But  above  all,  it  must  be  remembered  that  we  can  not 
depend  upon  either  the  geography  or  the  chronology  of 
a  myth.  As  I  have  shown,  there  is  a  universal  tendency 
to  give  the  old  story  a  new  habitat,  and  hence  we  have 
Ararats  and  Olympuses  all  over  the  world.    In  the  same 

*  "  The  Xative  Races  of  America,"  vol.  iii,  p.  14. 


THE  XATURE  OF  MYTHS.  119 

way  the  myth  is  always  brought  down  and  attached  to 
more  recent  events  : 

"All  over  Europe — in  Germany,  France,  Spain,  Switz- 
erland, England,  Scotland,  Ireland — the  exploits  of  the 
oldest  mythological  heroes,  figuring  in  the  Sagas,  Eddas, 
and  Nibelungen  Lied,  have  been  ascribed,  in  the  folk-lore 
and  ballads  of  the  people,  to  Barbarossa,  Charlemagne, 
Boabdil,  Charles  V,  William  Tell,  Arthur,  Robin  Hood, 
Wallace,  and  St.  Patrick."  * 

In  the  next  place,  we  must  remember  how  imj)ossible 
it  is  for  the  mind  to  invent  an  entirely  new  fact. 

What  dramatist  or  novelist  has  ever  yet  made  a  plot 
which  did  not  consist  of  events  that  had  already  transpired 
somewhere  on  earth  ?  He  might  intensify  events,  con- 
centrate and  combine  them,  or  amplify  them  ;  but  that  is 
all.  Men  in  all  ages  have  suffered  from  jealousy, — like 
Othello  ;  have  committed  murders, — like  Macbeth  ;  have 
yielded  to  the  sway  of  morbid  minds, — like  Hamlet ;  have 
stolen,  lied,  and  debauched, — like  Falstaff  ; — there  are 
Oliver  Twists,  Bill  Sykeses,  and  Xancies  ;  Micawbei's, 
Pickwicks,  and  Pecksniffs  in  every  great  city. 

There  is  nothing  in  the  mind  of  man  that  has  not  pre- 
existed in  nature.  Can  we  imagine  a  person,  who  never 
saw  or  heard  of  an  elephant,  drawing  a  picture  of  such  a 
two-tailed  creature  ?  It  was  thought  at  one  time  that 
man  had  made  the  flying-dragon  out  of  his  own  imagina- 
tion ;  but  we  now  know  that  the  image  of  the  pterodactyl 
had  simply  descended  from  generation  to  generation. 
Sindbad's  great  bird,  the  roc,  was  considered  a  flight  of 
the  Oriental  fancy,  until  science  revealed  the  bones  of  the 
dinornis.  All  the  winged  beasts  breathing  fire  are  simply 
a  recollection  of  the  comet. 

In  fact,  even  with  the  patterns  of  nature  before  it,  the 

*  Bancroft,  "  Native  Races,"  note,  vol.  iii,  p.  77. 


120  THE  LEGENDS. 

human  mind  has  not  greatly  exaggerated  them  :  it  has 
never  drawn  a  bird  larger  than  the  dinomis  or  a  beast 
greater  than  the  mammoth. 

It  is  utterly  impossible  that  the  races  of  the  whole 
world,  of  all  the  continents  and  islands,  could  have  pre- 
served traditions  from  the  most  remote  ages,  of  a  comet 
having  struck  the  earth,  of  the  great  heat,  the  conflagra- 
tion, the  cave-life,  the  age  of  darkness,  and  the  return  of 
the  sun,  and  yet  these  things  have  had  no  basis  of  fact. 
It  was  not  possible  for  the  primitive  mind  to  have  imagined 
these  things  if  they  had  never  occurred. 


BIB   MAN  EXIST  BEFORE  THE  BRIFT?  121 


CHAPTER  II, 

DID  MAN  EXIST  BEFORE  TEE  DRIFT? 

First,  let  us  ask  ourselves  this  question,  Did  man  ex- 
ist before  the  Drift  ? 

If  he  did,  he  .  must  have  survived  it  ;  and  he  could 
hardly  have  passed  through  it  without  some  remembrance 
of  such  a  terrible  event  surviving  in  the  traditions  of  the 
race. 

If  he  did  not  exist  before  the  Drift,  of  course,  no 
myths  descriptive  of  it  could  have  come  down  to  us. 

This  preliminary  question  must,  then,  be  settled  by 
testimony. 

Let  us  call  our  witnesses  : 

"  The  palseolithic  hunter  of  the  mid  and  late  Pleisto- 
cene river-deposits  in  Europe  belongs,  as  we  have  al- 
ready shown,  to  a  fauna  which  arrived  in  Britain  before 
the  lowering  of  the  temperature  produced  glaciers  and 
icebergs  in  our  country  ;  he  may,  therefore,  be  viewed  as 
being  probably  pre-glacial."  ^= 

Man  had  spread  widely  over  the  earth  before  the 
Drift ;  therefore,  he  had  lived  long  on  the  earth.  His 
remains  have  been  found  in  Scotland,  England,  Ireland, 
France,  Spain,  Italy,  Greece  ;  in  Africa,  in  Palestine,  in 
India,  and  in  the  United  States. f 

"  Man  was  living  in  the  valley  of  the  lower  Thames 
before  the  Arctic  mammalia  had  taken  full  possession  of 

*  Dawkins's  "Early  Man  in  Britain,"  p.  169.         f  Ibid.,  pp.  165,  166. 

7 


122  THE  LEGENDS. 

the  valley  of  the  Thames,  and  before  the  big-nosed  rhi- 
noceros had  become  extinct."  * 

Mr.  Tidderman  f  writes  that,  among  a  number  of 
bones  obtained  during  the  exploration  of  the  Victoria 
Cave,  near  Settle,  Yorkshire,  there  is  one  which  Mr.  Busk 
has  identified  as  human.     Mr.  Busk  says  : 

"  The  bone  is,  I  have  no  doubt,  human  ;  a  portion  of 
an  unusually  clumsy  fibula,  and  in  that  respect  not  unlike 
the  same  bone  in  the  Mentone  skeleton." 

The  deposit  from  which  the  bone  was  obtained  is  over- 
laid "by  a  bed  of  stiff  glacial  clay,  containing  ice-scratched 
bowlders."  "Here  then,"  says  Geikie,  "is  direct  proof 
that  men  lived  in  England  prior  to  the  last  inter-glacial 
period."  \ 

The  evidences  are  numerous,  as  I  have  shown,  that 
when  these  deposits  came  upon  the  earth  the  face  of  the 
land  was  above  the  sea,  and  occupied  by  plants  and  animals. 


SECTiorr  AT  St.  Achettl. 

The  accompanying  cut,  taken  from  Sir  John  Lubbock's 
"Prehistoric  Times,"  page  364,  represents  the  strata  at 
St.  Acheul,  near  Amiens,  France. 

*  Dawkins's  "  Early  Man  in  Britain,"  p.  13*7. 

\  "  Nature,"  November  6,  18Y3.         %  "The  Great  Ice  Age,"  p.  4*75. 


DID  MAN  EXIST  BEFORE  THE  DRIFT?  123 

The  upper  stratum  {a)  represents  a  brick  earth,  four 
to  five  feet  in  thickness,  and  containing  a  few  angular 
flints.  The  next  [b)  is  a  thin  layer  of  angular  gravel,  one 
to  two  feet  in  thickness.  The  next  (c)  is  a  bed  of  sandy 
marl,  five  to  six  feet  in  thickness.  The  lowest  deposit 
(f?)  immecUately  overlies  the  chalk  /  it  is  a  bed  of  partially 
rounded  gravel,  and,  in  this,  human  implements  of  flint 
have  heenfoimcL  The  spot  was  used  in  the  early  Chris- 
tian period  as  a  cemetery  ;  f  represents  one  of  the  graves, 
made  fifteen  hundred  years  ago  ;  e  represents  one  of  the 
ancient  cofiins,  of  which  only  the  nails  and  clamps  are 
left,  every  particle  of  the  wood  having  perished. 

And,  says  Sir  John  Lubbock  : 

"  It  is  especially  at  the  loicer  part "  of  these  lowest 
deposits  "  that  the  flint  implements  occur."  * 

The  bones  of  the  mammoth,  the  wild  bull,  the  deer, 
the  horse,  the  rhinoceros,  and  the  reindeer  are  found  near 
the  bottom  of  these  strata  mixed  with  the  flint  imple- 
ments of  men. 

"  All  the  fossils  belong  to  animals  which  live  on 
land  ;  .  .   .  we  find  no  marine  remains."  f 

Remember  that  the  Drift  is  unfossiliferous  and  im- 
stratified  ;  that  it  fell  en  masse,  and  that  these  remains 
are  found  in  its  lower  part,  or  caught  between  it  and  the 
rocks  heloio  it,  and  you  can  form  a  vivid  picture  of  the 
sudden  and  terrible  catastrophe.  The  trees  were  im- 
bedded with  man  and  the  animals  ;  the  bones  of  men, 
smaller  and  more  friable,  probably  perished,  ground  up  in 
the  tempest,  while  only  their  flint  implements  and  the 
great  bones  of  the  larger  animals,  hard  as  stones,  remain 
to  tell  the  dreadful  story.     And  yet  some  human  bones 

*  "  Preliistoric  Times,"  p.  366.  f  Ibid.,  pp.  366,  367. 


124 


THE  LEGEXDS. 


have  been  found  ;  a  lower  jaw-bone  was  discovered  in  a 
pit  at  Moulinguignon,  and  a  skull  and  other  bones  were 
found  in  the  valley  of  the  Seine  by  M.  Bertrand.* 

And  these  discoveries  have  not  been  limited  to  river- 
gravels.  In  the  Shrub  Hill  gravel-bed  in  England,  "  in 
the  lotoest  jyart  of  it,  numerous  flint  implements  of  the 
palreolithic  type  have  been  discovei*ed."  f 

We  have,  besides  these  sub-drift  remains,  the  skulls  of 
men  who  probably  lived  before  the  great  cataclysm, — men 
who  may  have  looked  upon  the  very  comet  that  smote  the 
world.  They  represent  two  widely  different  races.  One 
is  "  the  Engis  skull,"  so  called  from  the  cave  of  Engis,  near 
Liege,  where  it  was  found  by  Dr.  Schmerling.  "  It  is  a 
fair  average  human  skull,  which  might,"  says  Huxley, 
"  have  belonged  to  a  philosopher,  or  might  have  contained 
the  thoughtless  brains  of  a  savage."  J      It  represents  a 


The  Engis  Skull. 


civilized,  if  not  a  cultivated,  race  of  men.  It  may  repre- 
sent a  victim,  a  prisoner,  held  for  a  cannibalistic  feast ; 
or  a  trader  from  a  more  civilized  region. 

*  "  Prebistoric  Times,"  p.  360.  f  Ibid.,  p.  S51. 

X  '"Man's  Place  in  Xaturc."  p.  156. 


BID  MAN  EXIST  BEFORE  THE  DRIFT? 


125 


In  another  cave,  in  the  Neanderthal,  near  Hochdale, 
between  Diisseldorf  and  Elberfeld,  a  skull  was  found 
which  is  the  most  aj^e-like  of  all  known  human  crania. 
The  man  to  whom  it  belonged  must  have  been  a  barba- 
rian brute  of  the  rudest  possible  tyjDe.  Plere  is  a  repre- 
sentation of  it. 


The  Neanderthal-  Skull. 


I  beg  the  reader  to  remember  these  skulls  when  he 
comes  to  read,  a  little  further  on,  the  legend  told  by  an 
American  Indian  tribe  of  California,  describing  the  mar- 
riage between  the  daughter  of  the  gods  and  a  son  of  the 
grizzly  bears,  from  which  union,  we  are  told,  came  the  In- 
dian tribes.  These  skulls  represent  creatures  as  far  apart,  I 
was  about  to  say,  as  gods  and  bears.  The  "  Engis  skull," 
with  its  full  frontal  brain-pan,  its  fine  lines,  and  its  splen- 
didly arched  dome,  tells  us  of  ages  of  cultivation  and  de- 
velopment in  some  favored  center  of  the  race  ;  while  the 
horrible  and  beast-like  proportions  of  "  the  Neanderthal 
skull "  speak,  with  no  less  certainty,  of  undeveloped, 
bi'utal,  savage  man,  only  a  little  above  the  gorilla  in  ca- 
pacity ; — a  prowler,  a  robber,  a  murderer,  a  cave-dweller, 
a  cannibal,  a  Cain. 


12G  'J'HE  LEGENDS. 

We  shall  see,  as  we  go  on  in  the  legends  of  the  races 
on  both  sides  of  the  Atlantic,  that  they  all  looked  to  some 
central  land,  east  of  America  and  west  of  Europe,  some 
island  of  the  ocean,  where  dwelt  a  godlike  race,  and 
where  alone,  it  would  seem,  the  human  race  was  preserved 
to  repeoj)le  the  earth,  while  these  brutal  representatives 
of  the  race,  the  Neanderthal  people,  were  crushed  out. 

And  this  is  not  mere  theorizing.  It  is  conceded,  as 
the  result  of  most  extensive  scientific  research  : 

1.  That  the  great  southern  mammalia  perished  in  Eu- 
rope when  the  Drift  came  upon  the  earth. 

2.  It  is  conceded  that  these  two  skulls  are  associated 
with  tlie  bones  of  these  locally  extinct  animals,  mingled 
together  in  the  same  deposits. 

3.  The  conclusion  is,  therefore,  logically  irresistible, 
that  these  skulls  belonged  to  men  who  lived  during  oi- 
before  the  Drift  Age. 

Many  authorities  support  this  proposition  tbat  man — 
palaeolithic  man,  man  of  the  mammoth  and  the  mastodon 
— existed  in  the  caves  of  Europe  before  the  Drift. 

"After  having  occupied  the  English  caves  for  untold 
ages,  palaeolithic  man  disappeared  for  ever,  and  .with  him 
vanished  many  animals  now  either  locally  or  wholly  ex- 
tinct." * 

Above  the  remains  of  man  in  these  caves  comes  a  de- 
posit of  stalagmite,  twelve  feet  in  thickness,  indicating  a 
vast  period  of  time  during  whicb  it  was  being  formed,  and 
during  this  time  man  icas  absent.\ 

Above  this  stalagmite  comes  another  deposit  of  cave- 

eartb  : 

"The  deposits  immediately  overlying  the  stalagmite 
and  cave-earth  contain  an  almost  totally  different  assem- 

*  "  The  Great  Ice  Age,"  p.  411.  f  Ibid.,  p.  411. 


DID   MAN  EXIST  BEFORE   THE  DRIFT?  127 

blage  of  animal  remains,  along  with  relics  of  the  neolithic, 
bronze,  u-on,  and  historic  iDeriocls. 

"There  is  no  passage,  but,  on  the  contrary,  a  sharp 
and  abrupt  break  between  these  later  deposits  and  the 
underlying  palaeolithic  accumulations,"  * 

Here  we  have  the  proof  that  man  inhabited  these  caves 
for  ages  before  the  Drift ;  that  he  pei-ished  with  the  great 
mammals  and  disappeared  ;  and  that  the  twelve  feet  of 
stalagmite  were  formed  while  no  men  and  few  animals 
dwelt  in  Europe.  But  some  fragment  of  the  human  race 
had  escaped  elsewhere,  in  some  other  region  ;  there  it 
multiplied  and  replenished  the  earth,  and  gradually  ex- 
tended and  spread  again  over  Eui-ope,  and  reappeared  in 
the  cave-deposits  above  the  stalagmite.  And,  in  like 
manner,  the  animals  gradually  came  in  from  the  regions 
on  which  the  Drift  had  not  fallen. 

But  the  revelations  of  the  last  few  years  prove,  not 
only  that  man  lived  during  the  Drift  age,  and  that  he 
dwelt  on  the  earth  when  the  Drift  fell,  but  that  he  can 
be  traced  backward  for  ages  before  the  Drift  ;  and  that 
he  was  contemporary  with  species  of  great  animals  that 
had  run  their  course,  and  ceased  to  exist  centuries,  per- 
haps thousands  of  years,  before  the  Drift. 

I  quote  a  high  authority  : 

-"  Most  of  the  human  relics  of  any  sort  have  been 
found  in  the  more  recent  layers  of  the  Drift.  They  have 
been  discovered,  however,  not  only  in  the  older  Drift,  but 
also,  though  very  rarely,  in  the  underlying  Tertiary.  For 
instance,  in  the  tipper  Pliocene  at  St.  Prest,  near  Chartres, 
were  found  stone  implements  and  cuttings  on  bone,  in 
connection  with  relics  of  a  long-extinct  elephant  {^Elephas 
meridionalis)  that  is  icholly  lacking  in  the  Drift.  During 
the  past  two  years  the  evidences  of  human  existence  in 
the  Tertiary  period,  i.  e,,  previous  to  the  age  of  mani- 

*  "The  Great  Ice  Age,"  p.  -ill. 


128  THE  LEGENDS. 

moths  of  the  Diluvial  period,  have  multiplied,  and  by 
their  multiplication  give  cumulative  confirmation  to  each 
other.  Even  in  the  lower  strata  of  the  Miocene  (the 
middle  Tertiary)  important  discoveries  of  stone  knives 
and  bone-cuttings  have  been  made,  as  at  Thenay,  depart- 
ment of  JNIarne-et-Loire,  and  Billy,  department  of  Allier, 
France.  Professor  J,  D.  Whitney,  the  eminent  State 
geologist  of  California,  reports  similar  discoveries  there 
also.  So,  then,  we  may  believe  that  before  the  last  great 
upheaval  of  the  Alps  and  Pyrenees,  and  while  the  yet 
luxuriant  vegetation  of  the  then  (i.  e.,  in  the  Tertiary 
period)  paradisaic  climate  yet  adorned  Central  Europe, 
man  inhabited  this  region."  * 

We  turn  to  the  Amei'ican  Continent  and  we  find  addi- 
tional proofs  of  man's  pre-glacial  existence.  The  "  Ameri- 
can Naturalist,"  1873,  says  : 

"  The  discoveries  that  are  constantly  being  made  in 
this  country  are  proving  that  man  existed  on  this  conti- 
nent as  far  back  in  geological  time  as  on  the  European 
Continent  ;  and  it  even  seems  that  America,  really  the  Old 
World,  geologically,  will  soon  prove  to  be  the  birthplace 
of  the  earliest  race  of  man.  One  of  the  late  and  impor- 
tant discoveries  is  that  by  Mr.  E.  L.  Berthoud,  which  is 
given  in  full,  with  a  map,  in  the  '  Proceedings  of  the 
Philadelphia  Academy  of  Sciences  for  1872,'  p.  46.  Mr. 
Berthoud  there  reports  the  discovery  of  ancient  fire-places, 
rude  stone  monuments,  and  implements  of  stone  in  great 
number  and  variety,  in  several  places  along  Crow  Creek, 
in  Colorado,  and  also  on  several  other  rivers  in  the  A^icin- 
ity.  These  fire-places  indicate  several  ancient  sites  of  an 
unknown  race  diflfering  entirely  from  the  mound-builders 
and  the  present  Indians,  while  the  shells  and  other  fossils 
found  with  the  remains  make  it  quite  certain  that  the 
deposit  in  which  the  ancient  sites  are  found  is  as  old  as 
the  Pliocene,  and  perhaps  as  the  Miocene.  As  the  fossil 
shells  found  with  the  relics  of  man  are  of  estuary  forms, 
and  as  the  sites  of  the  ancient  towns  are  on  extended 

*  "  Popular  Science  Monthly,"  April,  1875,  p.  682. 


DID   MAN  EXIST  BEFORE  THE  DRIFT?  129 

points  of  land,  and  at  the  base  of  the  ridges  or  bluffs,  Mr. 
Berthoud  thinks  the  evidence  is  strongly  in  favor  of  the 
locations  having  been  near  some  ancient  fresh-water  lake, 
whose  vestiges  the  present  topography  of  the  region  fa- 

VOl'S." 

I  quote  the  following  from  the  "  Scientific  American  " 
(1880)  : 

"  The  finding  of  numerous  relics  of  a  buried  race  on 
an  ancient  horizon,  from  ttoenty  to  thirty  feet  heloio  the 
present  level  of  country  in  3Iissouri  and  luxnsas,  has 
been  noted.  The  St.  Louis  '  Republican  '  gives  particu- 
lars of  another  find  of  an  unmistakable  character  made 
last  spring  (1880)  in  Franklin  County,  Missouri,  by  Dr. 
R.  W.  Booth,  who  was  engaged  in  iron-mining  about 
three  miles  from  Dry  Branch,  a  station  on  the  St.  Louis 
and  Santa  Fe  Railroad.  At  a  depth  of  eighteen  feet  heloio 
the  surface  the  miners  uncovered  a  human  skull,  with 
portions  of  the  ribs,  vertebral  column,  and  collar-bone. 
With  them  were  found  two  flint  arrow-heads  of  the  most 
primitive  type,  imperfect  in  shape  and  barbed.  A  feio 
2neces  of  charcoal  v:ere  also  found  at  the  same  time  and 
place.  Dr.  Booth  was  fully  aware  of  the  importance  of 
the  discovery,  and  tried  to  preserve  everything  found, 
but  upon  touching  the  skull  it  crumbled  to  dust,  and  some 
of  the  other  bones  broke  into  small  pieces  and  partly 
crumbled  away  ;  but  enough  was  preserved  to  fully  estab- 
lish the  fact  that  they  are  human  bones. 

"  Some  fifteen  or  twenty  days  subsequent  to  the  first 
finding,  at  a  depth  of  tv:entyfour  feet  heloio  the  surface, 
other  bones  were  found — a  thigh-bone  and  a  portion  of 
the  vertebra,  and  several  pieces  of  charredivood,  the  hones 
apparently  helonging  to  the  first-found  skeleton.  In  both 
cases  the  bones  rested  on  a  fibrous  stratum,  suspected  at 
the  time  to  be  a  fragment  of  coarse  matting.  This  lay 
upon  a  floor  of  soft  hut  solid  iron-ore,  which  retained  the 
imprint  of  the  fibers.  .  .  . 

"  The  indications  are  that  the  filled  cavity  had  original- 
ly been  a  sort  of  cave,  and  that  the  supposed  matting  was 
more  probably  a  layer  of  twigs,  rushes,  or  weeds,  whicb 
the  inhabitants  of  the  cave  had  used  as  a  bed,  as  the  fiber- 


130 


THE  LEGENDS. 


marks  cross  each  other  irregularly.  The  ore-bed  in  which 
the  remains  were  found,  and  part  of  which  seems  to  have 
foi'med  after  the  period  of  human  occupation  of  the  cave, 
lies  in  the  second  (or  saccharoidal)  sandstone  of  the 
Lower  Silurian." 

Note  the  facts  :  The  remains  of  this  man  are  found 
separated — part  are  eighteen  feet  below  the  surface,  part 
twenty-four  feet — that  is,  they  are  six  feet  apart.  How 
can  we  account  for  this  condition  of  things,  except  by 
supposing  that  the  poor  savage  had  rushed  for  safety  to 
his  shallow  rock-shelter,  and  had  there  been  caught  by  the 
world-tempest,  and  torn  to  jozeces  and  deposited  in  frag- 
ments with  the  debris  that  filled  his  rude  home  ? 

In  California  we  encounter  a  still  more  sur- 
prising state  of  things. 

The  celebrated  Calaveras  skull  was  found  in 
a  shaft  one  hundred  and  fifty  feet  deep,  under 
five  beds  of  lava  and  volcanic  tufa,  and  four 
beds  of  auriferous  gravel. 

The  accompanying  cut  represents  a  plum- 
met found  in  digging  a  well  in  the  San  Joaquin 
Valley,  California,  thirty  feet  below  the  surface. 
Dr.  Foster  says  : 

"In  examining  this  beautiful  relic,  one  is 
led  almost  instinctively  to  believe  that  it  was 
used  as  a  plummet,  for  the  purpose  of  deter- 
mining the  perpendicular  to  the  horizon   [for 
PLUjrarET     building   i^urposes  ?];...   when  we  consider 
FKOM  S.vN    its  symmetry  of  form,  the  contrast  of  colors 
Valley^      brought  out  by  the  process  of  grinding  and 
Cal.  '      polishing,  and  the  delicate  drilling  of  the  hole 
through  a  material  (syenite)  so  liable  to  fract- 
ure, we  are  free  to  say  it  affords  an  exhibition  of  the  lapi- 
dary's skill  superior  to  anything  yet  furnished  by  the 
Stone  age  of  either  continent."  * 


*  "  The  Prehistoric  Races  of  the  United  States,"  p.  55. 


DID  MAN  EXIST  BEFORE  THE  DRIFT i  131 

In  Louisiana,  layers  of  pottery,  six  inches  thick,  with 
remnants  of  matting  and  baskets,  were  found  ttcelve  feet 
beloio  the  surface,  and  underneath  what  Dr.  Foster  be- 
lieves to  be  sti-ata  of  the  Drift.  * 

I  might  fill  pages  with  similar  testimony  ;  but  I  think 
I  have  given  enough  to  satisfy  the  reader  that  man  did 
exist  before  the  Drift. 

I  shall  discuss  the  subject  still  further  when  I  come 
to  consider,  in  a  subsequent  chapter,  the  question  whether 
pre-glacial  man  w^as  or  was  not  civilized. 


*  "  The  Prehistoric  Races  of  the  United  States,"  p.  56. 


132  TEE  LEGENDS. 


CHAPTER   III. 

LEGENDS   OF  THE  COMING    OF  THE  COMET. 

AVe  turn  now  to  the  legends  of  mankind. 

I  shall  try  to  divide  them,  so  as  to  represent,  in  their 
order,  the  several  stages  of  the  great  event.  This,  of 
course,  will  be  difficult  to  do,  for  the  same  legend  may- 
detail  several  different  parts  of  the  same  common  story  ; 
and  hence  there  may  be  more  or  less  repetition  ;  they 
will  more  or  less  overlap  each  other. 

And,  first,  I  shall  present  one  or  two  legends  thai 
most  clearly  represent  the  first  coming  of  the  monster, 
the  dragon,  the  serpent,  the  wolf,  the  dog,  the  Evil  One, 
the  Comet. 

The  second  Hindoo  "Avatar"  gives  the  following  de- 
scrij^tion  of  the  rapid  advance  of  some  dreadful  object 
out  of  sjDace,  and  its  tremendous  fall  upon  the  earth  : 

"By  the  power  of  God  there  issued  from  the  essence 
of  Brahma  a  being  shaped  like  a  boar,  ichite  and  exceeding 
small ;  this  being,  in  the  space  of  an  hour,  grew  to  the 
size  of  an  elephant  of  the  largest  size,  and  remained  m 
the  air.'''' 

That  is  to  say,  it  was  an  atmospheric,  not  a  terrestrial 
creature. 

"Brahma  was  astonished  on  beholding  this  figure,  and 
discovered,  by  the  force  of  internal  penetration,  that  it 
could  be  nothing  but  the  power  of  the  Omnipotent  which 
had  assumed  a  body  and  become  visible.  He  now  felt 
that  God  is  all  in  all,  and  all  is  from  him,  and  all  in  him  ; 


LEGENDS   OF  THE  COMIXG    OF  THE   COMET.      133 

and  said  to  Mareechee  and  his  sons  (the  attendant  genii)  : 
'A  wonderfiil  animal  has  emanated  from  my  essence  ;  at 
first  of  the  smallest  size,  it  has  in  one  hour  increased  to 
this  enormous  bulk,  and,  without  doubt,  it  is  a  portion 
of  the  almighty  power.'  " 

Brahma,  an  earthly  king,  was  at  first  frightened  by 
the  terrible  spectacle  in  the  air,  and  then-  claimed  that  he 
had  produced  it  himself  ! 

"  They  were  engaged  in  this  conversation  when  that 
vara,  or  'boar-form,'  suddenly  uttered  a  sound  like  the 
loudest  thunder,  and  the  echo  reverberated  and  shook  all 
the  quarters  of  the  universe^ 

This  is  the  same  terrible  noise  which,  as  I  have  already 
shown,  would  necessarily  result  from  the  carbureted  hy- 
drogen of  the  comet  exploding  in  our  atmosphere.  The 
legend  continues  : 

"  But  still,  under  this  dreadful  awe  of  heaven,  a  cer- 
tain wonderful  divine  confidence  secretly  animated  the 
hearts  of  Brahma,  Mareechee,  and  the  other  genii,  who 
immediately  began  praises  and  thanksgiving.  That  vara 
(boar-form)  figure,  hearing  the  power  of  the  Yedas  and 
Mantras  from  their  mouths,  again  made  a  loud  noise,  and 
became  a  dreadful  spectacle.  Shaking  the  full  floxoing 
mane  which  hung  down  his  neck  on  both  sides,  and  erect- 
ing the  humid  hairs  of  his  body,  he  proudly  displayed  his 
two  most  exceedingly  white  tusks  ;  then,  rolling  about 
his  wine-colored  (red)  eyes,  and  erecting  his  tail,  he  de- 
scended from  the  reyion  of  the  air,  and  plunged  head- 
foremost into  the  water.  The  whole  body  of  water  was 
convidsed  by  the  motion,  and  began  to  rise  in  waves, 
while  the  guardian  spirit  of  the  sea,  being  terrified,  began 
to  tremble  for  his  domain  and  cry  for  mercy.  * 

How  fully  does  this  legend  accord  with  the  descrip- 
tions of  comets  given  by  astronomers,  the  "  horrid  hair," 
the  mane,  the  animal-like  head  !     Compare  it  with  Mr. 

*  Maurice's  "  Ancient  History  of  Hindustan,"  vol.  i,  p.  304. 


134  THE  LEGENDS. 

Lockyer's  account  of  Coggia's  comet,  as  seen  through 
Newell's  large  refracting  telescope  at  Ferndene,  Gates- 
head, and  which  he  described  as  having  a  head  like  "a 
fan-shaped  projection  of  light,  with  ear-like  appendages, 
at  each  side,  which  sympathetically  complemented  each 
other  at  every  change  either  of  form  or  luminosity." 
We  turn  to  the  legends  of  another  race  : 
The  Zendavesta  of  the  ancient  Persians*  describes  a 
period  of  "great  innocence  and  happiness  on  earth." 

This  represents,  doubtless,  the  delightful  climate  of 
the  Tertiary  period,  already  referred  to,  when  endless 
summer  extended  to  the  poles. 

"  There  was  a  '  man-bull,'  who  resided  on  an  elevated 
region,  which  the  deity  had  assigned  him." 

This  was  i^robably  a  line  of  kings  or  a  nation,  whose 
symbol  was  the  bull,  as  we  see  in  Bel  or  Baal,  with  the 
bull's  horns,  dwelling  in  some  elevated  mountainous  re- 
gion. 

"  At  last  an  evil  one,  denominated  Ahriman,  corrupted 
the  world.  After  having  dared  to  visit  heaven  "  (that  is, 
he  appeared  first  in  the  high  heavens),  "he  descended  upon 
the  earth  and  assumed  the  form  of  a  serpent.'''^ 

That  is  to  say,  a  serpent-like  comet  struck  the  earth. 

"The  man-bull  was  2')oisoned  by  his  venom,  and  died 
in  consequence  of  it.  Meanwhile,  Ahriman  threw  the 
whole  universe  into  confusion  (chaos),  for  that  enemy  of 
good  mingled  himself  with  everything,  appeared  every- 
where, and  sought  to  do  mischief  above  and  below." 

"We  shall  find  all  through  these  legends  allusions  to 
the  poisonous  and  deadly  gases  brought  to  the  earth  by 
the  comet :  we  have  already  seen  that  the  gases  which 
are  pi'oved  to  be  associated  with  comets  are  fatal  to  life. 

*  Faber's  "  HorsB  Mosaicae,"  vol.  i,  p.  '72. 


LEGENDS   OF  THE  COMING    OF  THE   COMET.      135 

And  this,  be  it  remembered,  is  not  guess-work,  but  the 
revelation  of  the  spectroscope. 

The  traditions  of  the  ancient  Britons*  tell  us  of  an 
ancient  time,  when 

"  The  profligacy  of  mankind  had  provoked  the  great 
Supreme  to  send  a  pestilential  ivind  upon  the  earth.  A 
2nire  poison  descended,  evert/  blast  was  death.  At  this 
time  the  patriarch,  distinguished  for  his  integrity,  loas 
shut  lip,  together  with  his  select  company,  in  the  inclos- 
%ire  icith  the  strong  door.  (The  cave?)  Here  the  just 
ones  were  safe  from  injury.  Presently  a  tetnpest  of  fire 
arose.  It  sp>lit  the  earth  asunder  to  the  great  deep.  The 
lake  Llion  burst  its  bounds,  and  the  waves  of  the  sea 
lifted  themselves  on  high  around  the  borders  of  Britain, 
the  rain  poured  dovm  from  heaven,  and  the  uKiters  covered 
the  earth.'''' 

Here  we  have  the  whole  story  told  briefly,  but  with 
the  regular  sequence  of  events  : 

1.  The  poisonous  gases. 

2.  The  people  seek  shelter  in  the  caves. 

3.  The  earth  takes  fire. 

4.  The  earth  is  cleft  open  ;  the  fiords  are  made,  and 
the  trap-rocks  burst  forth. 

5.  The  rain  pours  down. 

6.  There  is  a  season  of  floods. 

When  we  turn  to  the  Greek  legends,  as  recorded  by 
one  of  their  most  ancient  writers,  Hesiod,  we  find  the 
coming  of  the  comet  clearly  depicted. 

We  shall  see  here,  and  in  many  other  legends,  refer- 
ence to  the  fact  that  there  was  more  than  one  monster  in 
the  sky.  This  is  in  accordance  with  what  we  now  know 
to  be  true  of  comets.  They  often  appear  in  pairs  or  even 
triplets.  Within  the  past  few  years  we  have  seen  Biela's 
comet  divide  and  form  two  separate  comets,  pursuing 

*  "Mythology  of  the  British  Druids,"  p.  226. 


136  THE  LEGENDS. 

their  course  side  by  side.  When  the  great  comet  of  1811 
appeared,  another  of  almost  equal  magnitude  followed  it. 
Seneca  informs  us  that  Ephoras,  a  Greek  writer  of  the 
fourth  century  before  Christ,  had  recorded  the  singular 
fact  of  a  comet's  separation  into  two  parts. 

"  This  statement  was  deemed  incredible  by  the  Roman 
philosopher.  More  recent  observations  of  similar  phenom- 
ena leave  no  room  to  question  the  historian's  veracity."  * 

The  Chinese  annals  record  the  appearance  of  three 
comets — one  large  and  two  smaller  ones — at  the  same 
time,  in  the  year  896  of  our  era. 

"  They  traveled  together  for  three  days.  The  little 
ones  disappeared  first  and  then  the  large  one." 

And  again  : 

"  On  June  2Tth,  a.  d.  416,  two  comets  appeai'ed  in  the 
constellation  Hercules,  and  pursued  nearly  the  same  path."f 

If  mere  proximity  to  the  earth  served  to  split  Biela's 
comet  into  two  fragments,  why  might  not  a  comet,  which 
came  near  enough  to  strike  the  earth,  be  broken  into 
several  separate  forms  ? 

So  that  there  is  nothing  improbable  in  Hesiod's  de- 
scription of  two  or  three  aerial  monsters  appearing  at  or 
about  the  same  time,  or  of  one  being  the  apparent  off- 
spring of  the  other,  since  a  large  comet  may,  like  Biela's, 
have  broken  in  two  before  the  eyes  of  the  people. 

Hesiod  tells  us  that  the  Earth  united  with  Night 
to  do  a  terrible  deed,  by  which  the  Heavens  were 
much  wronged.  The  Earth  prepared  a  large  sickle  of 
white  ii'on,  with  jagged  teeth,  and  gave  it  to  her  son 
Cronus,  and  stationed  him  in  ambush,  and  when  Heaven 
came,  Cronus,  his  son,  grasped  at  him,  and  with  his  "huge 
sickle,  long  and  jagged-toothed,"  cruelly  wounded  him. 

*  Kirkwood,  "Comets  and  Meteors,"  p.  50.  f  Ibid.,  p.  51. 


LEGENDS   OF  THE  COMING    OF  THE  COMET.      137 

Was  this  jagged,  white,  sickle-shaped  object  a  comet  ? 

"And  Night  bare  also  hateful  Destiny,  and  black 
Fate,  and  Death,  and  Nemesis." 

And  Hesiod  tells  us  that  "  she,"  probably  Night — 

"  Brought  forth  another  monster,  irresistible,  nowise 
like  to  mortal  man  or  immortal  gods,  in  a  hollow  cavern  ; 
the  divine,  stubborn-hearted  Echidna  (half-nymph,  with 
dark  eyes  and  fair  cheeks  ;  and  half,  on  the  other  hand,  a 
serpent,  huge  and  terrible  and  vast),  speckled,  and  flesh- 
devouring,  'neath  caves  of  sacred  Earth.  .  .  .  With  her, 
they  say  that  Typhaon  (Typhon)  associated  in  love,  a 
terrible  and  lawless  ravisher  for  the  dark-eyed  maid.  .  .  . 
But  she  (Echidna)  bare  Chimsera,  breathing  resistless  fire, 
fierce  and  huge,  fleet-footed  as  well  as  strong  ;  this  mon- 
ster had  three  heads  :  one,  indeed,  of  a  grim-visaged 
lion,  one  of  a  goat,  and  another  of  a  serpent,  a  fierce  drag- 


COITET   OF    1S62. 

Aspect  of  the  head  of  the  comet  at  nine  in  tlic  evening,  the  iSd  August, 
and  the  24th  August  at  the  same  hour. 


138  THE  LEGENDS. 

on  ;  in  front  a  lion,  a  dragon  behind,  and  in  the  midst  a 
goat,  breathing  forth  the  dread  strength  of  blaming  fire. 
Her  Pegasus  slew  and  brave  Bellerophon." 

The  astronomical  works  show  what  weh-d,  and  fan- 
tastic, and  goblin-like  shapes  the  comets  assume  under 
the  telescope.  Look  at  the  representation  on  page  137, 
from  Guillemin's  work,*  of  the  appearance  of  the  comet 
of  1862,  giving  the  changes  which  took  place  in  twenty- 
four  hours.  If  we  will  imagine  one  of  these  monsters 
close  to  the  earth,  we  can  readily  suppose  that  the  excited 
people,  looking  at  "  the  dreadful  spectacle,"  (as  the  Hin- 
doo legend  calls  it,)  saw  it  taking  the  shapes  of  serpents, 
dragons,  birds,  and  wolves. 

And  Hesiod  proceeds  to  tell  us  something  more  about 
this  fiery,  serpent-like  monster  : 

"But  when  Jove  had  driven  the  Titans  out  from 
Heaven,  huge  Earth  bare  her  youngest-born  son,  Typhosus 
(Typhaon,  Typhceus,  Typhon),  by  the  embrace  of  Tarta- 
rus (Hell),  through  golden  Aphrodite  (Venus),  whose 
hands,  indeed,  are  apt  for  deeds  on  the  score  of  strength, 
and  untiring  the  feet  of  the  strong  god  ;  and  from  his 
shoulders  there  were  a  hundred  heads  of  a  serpent,  a 
fierce  dragon  playing  with  dusl-y  tongues''''  {tongues  of 
fire  and  smoA-e?),  "and  from  the  eyes  in  his  wondrous 
heads  fire  sjiarMed  beneath  the  brows  ;  whilst  from  all 
his  heads  fire  teas  gleaming,  as  he  looked  keenly.  In  all 
his  terrible  heads,  too,  u-ere  voices  sending  forth  every 
kind  of  voice  ineffable.  For  one  while,  indeed,  they 
would  utter  sounds,  so  as  for  the  gods  to  understand,  and 
at  another  time,  again,  the  voice  of  a  loud-bellowing  bull, 
untamable  in  force  and  proud  in  utterance  ;  at  another 
time,  again,  that  of  a  lion  possessing  a  daring  spirit ;  at 
another  time,  again,  they  would  sound  like  to  whelps, 
wondrous  to  hear  ;  and  at  another,  he  would  hiss,  and  the 
lofty  mountains  resounded. 

*  "  The  Heavens,"  p.  256. 


LEGENDS   OF  THE   COMIXG    OF  THE  COMET.      139 

"And,  in  sooth,  then  would  there  have  been  done  a 
deed  past  remedy,  and  he,  even  he,  would  have  reigned 
over  mortals  and  immortals,  unless,  I  wot,  the  sire  of  gods 
and  men  had  quickly  observed  him.  Harshly  then  he 
thundered,  and  heavily  and  terribly  the  earth  re-echoed 
around  ;  and  the  broad  heaven  above,  and  the  sea  and 
streams  of  ocean,  and  the  abysses  of  earth.  But  beneath 
his  immortal  feet  vast  Oli/mpics  trembled,  as  the  king 
uprose  and  earth  groaned  beneath.  And  the  heat  from 
both  caught  the  dark-colored  sea,  both  of  the  thunder  and 
the  lightning,  and  Jire  from  the  monster,  the  heat  arising 
from  the  thunder-storms,  toinds,  and  burning  lightning. 
And  all  earth,  and  heaven,  and  sea,  icere  boiling  ;  and 
huge  billows  roared  around  the  shores  about  and  around, 
beneath  the  violence  of  the  gods  ;  and  unallayed  quaking 
arose.  Pluto  trembled,  monarch  over  the  dead  beneath  ; 
and  the  Titans  under  Tartarus,  standing  about  Cronus, 
trembled  also,  on  account  of  the  unceasing  tumid t  and 
dreadful  contention.  But  Jove,  when  in  truth  he  had 
raised  high  his  wrath,  and  had  taken  his  arms,  his  thunder 
and  lightning,  and  smoking  bolt,  leaped  up  and  smote  him 
from  Olympus,  and  scorched  all  around  the  wondrous 
heads  of  the  terrible  monster. 

"  But  when  at  length  he  had  quelled  it,  after  having 
smitten  it  with  blows,  the  monster  fell  doicn,  lamed,  and 
huge  Earth  groaiied.  But  the  flame  from  the  lightning- 
blasted  monster  flashed  forth  in  the  mountain  holloics, 
hidden  and  rugged,  when  he  was  stricken,  and  much  icas 
the  vast  earth  burnt  and  melted  by  the  boundless  vapor, 
like  as  pewter,  heated  by  the  art  of  youths,  and  by  the 
well-bored  melting-pit,  or  iron,  which  is  the  hardest  of 
metals,  subdued  in  tlie  dells  of  the  mountain  by  blazing 
fire,  melts  in  the  sacred  earth,  beneath  the  hands  of  Vul- 
can. So,  I  wot,  ivas  earth  tnelted  in  the  glare  of  burning 
fire.  Then,  troubled  in  spirit,  he  hurled  him  into  wide 
Tartarus."  * 

Here  we  have  a  very  faithful  and  accurate  narrative 
of  the  coming  of  the  comet : 

*  "  Tlieogony." 


140  THE  LEGENDS. 

Born  of  Night  a  monster  appears,  a  serpent,  huge, 
terrible,  speckled,  flesh-devouring.  With  her  is  another 
comet,  Typhaon  ;  they  beget  the  Chiraa?ra,  that  breathes 
resistless  fire,  fierce,  huge,  swift.  And  Typhaon,  assoei 
ated  with  both  these,  is  the  most  dreadful  monster  of  all, 
born  of  Hell  and  sensual  sin,  a  serpent,  a  fierce  dragon, 
many-headed,  with  dusky  tongues  and  fire  gleaming  ; 
sending  forth  dreadful  and  appalling  noises,  while  mount- 
ains and  fields  rock  with  earthquakes  ;  chaos  has  come  ; 
the  earth,  the  sea  boils;  there  is  unceasing  tumult  and 
contention,  and  in  the  midst  the  monster,  wounded  and 
broken  up,  falls  upon  the  earth  ;  the  earth  groans  under 
his  weight,  and  there  he  blazes  and  burns  for  a  time  in 
the  mountain  fastnesses  and  desert  places,  melting  the 
earth  with  boundless  vapor  and  glaring  fire. 

We  will  find  legend  after  legend  about  this  Typhon  : 
he  runs  through  the  mythologies  of  different  nations. 
And  as  to  his  size  and  his  terrible  power,  they  all  agree. 
He  was  no  earth-creature.  He  moved  in  the  air  ;  he 
reached  the  skies  : 

"  According  to  Pindar  the  head  of  Typhon  reached  to 
the  stars,  his  eyes  darted  fire,  his  hands  extended  from 
the  East  to  the' West,  terrible  serpents  were  twined  about 
the  middle  of  his  body,  and  one  hundred  snakes  took  the 
place  of  fingers  on  his  hands.  Between  him  and  the  gods 
there  was  a  dreadful  war.  Jupiter  finally  killed  him  with 
a  flash  of  lightning,  and  buried  him  under  Mount  Etna." 

And  there,  smoking  and  burning,  his  great  throes  and 
writhings,  we  are  told,  still  shake  the  earth,  and  threaten 
mankind  : 

"  And  with  pale  lips  men  say, 
'  To-morrow,  perchance  to-day, 
Encelidas  may  arise  ! '  " 


RAGNAROK.  141 


CHAPTER  lY. 

RAGNAROK.  , 

Theee  is  in  the  legends  of  the  Scandinavians  a  mar- 
velous record  of  the  coming  of  the  Comet.  It  has  been 
repeated  generation  after  generation,  translated  into  all 
languages,  commented  on,  criticised,  but  never  under- 
stood. It  has  been  regarded  as  a  wild,  unmeaning  rhap- 
sody of  words,  or  as  a  premonition  of  some  future  earth- 
catastrophe. 

But  look  at  it ! 

The  very  name  is  significant.  According  to  Professor 
Anderson's  etymology  of  the  word,  it  means  "  the  dark- 
ness of  the  gods"  ;  from  regin,  gods,  and  rokr,  darkness  ; 
but  it  may,  more  properly,  be  derived  from  the  Icelandic, 
Danish,  and  Swedish  regn,  a  rain,  and  rok,  smoke,  or  dust ; 
and  it  may  mean  the  rain  of  dust,  for  the  clay  came  first 
as  dust  ;  it  is  described  in  some  Indian  legends  as  ashes. 

First,  there  is,  as  in  the  tradition  of  the  Druids,  page 
135,  ante,  the  story  of  an  age  of  crime. 

The  Vala  looks  upon  the  world,  and,  as  the  "  Elder 
Edda  "  tells  us— 

"  There  saw  she  wade 
In  the  heavy  streams, 
Men — foul  murderers 
And  perjurers, 
And  them  who  others'  wives 
Seduce  to  sin. 
Brothers  slay  brothers  ; 
Sisters'  children 
Shed  each  other's  blood. 


142  THE  LEGEXDS. 

Hard  is  the  world  ! 
Sensual  sin  grows  hug<3. 
There  are  sword-ages,  axe-ages  ; 
Shields  are  cleft  in  twain  ; 
Storm-ages,  murder  ages  ; 
Till  the  world  falls  dead, 
And  men  no  longer  spare 
Or  pity  one  another."  * 

The  world  has  ripened  for  destruction  ;  and  "  Ragna- 
rok,"  the  darkness  of  the  gods,  or  the  rain  of  dust  and 
ashes,  comes  to  complete  the  work. 

The  whole  story  is  told  with  the  utmost  detail,  and 
we  shall  see  that  it  agrees,  in  almost  every  particular, 
with  what  reason  assures  us  must  have  happened. 

"  There  are  three  winters,"  or  years,  "  diiring  which 
great  wars  rage  over  the  world."  Mankind  has  reached 
a  climax  of  wickedness.  Doubtless  it  is,  as  now,  highly 
civilized  in  some  regions,  while  still  barbarian  in  others. 

"  Then  happens  that  which  will  seem  a  great  miracle  : 
that  the  icolf  devours  the  sun,  and  this  will  seem  a  great 
loss." 

That  is,  the  Comet  strikes  the  sun,  or  approaches  so 
close  to  it  that  it  seems  to  do  so. 

"  The  other  wolf  devours  the  moon,  and  this,  too,  will 
cause  great  mischief." 

We  have  seen  that  the  comets  often  come  in  coujiles 
or  triplets. 

"  The  stars  shall  be  hurled  from  heaven." 

This  refers  to  the  blazing  debris  of  the  Comet  falling 
to  the  earth. 

"  Then  it  shall  come  to  pass  that  the  earth  will  shake 
so  violently  that  trees  will  be  torn  up  by  the  roots,  the 

*  Anderson,  "Norse  Mythology,"  p.  416. 


RAGNAROK.  143 

mountains  Avill  topple  down,  and  all  bonds  and  fetters 
will  be  broken  and  snapped." 

Chaos  has  come  again.  How  closely  does  all  this 
agree  with  Hesiod's  description  of  the  shaking  earth  and 
the  universal  conflict  of  nature  ? 

"  The  Fenris-wolf  gets  loose." 

This,  we  shall  see,  is  the  name  of  one  of  the  comets. 

"  The  sea  rushes  over  the  earth,  for  the  Midgard-ser- 
pent  writhes  in  giant  rage,  and  seeks  to  gain  the  land." 

The  Midgard-serpent  is  the  name  of  another  comet ; 
it  strives  to  reach  the  earth  ;  its  proximity  disturbs  the 
oceans.  And  then  follows  an  inexplicable  piece  of  my- 
thology : 

"  The  ship  that  is  called  Naglf  ar  also  becomes  loose. 
It  is  made  of  the  nails  of  dead  men  ;  wherefore  it  is  worth 
warning  that,  when  a  man  dies  with  unpared  nails,  he  sup- 
plies a  large  amount  of  materials  for  the  building  of  this 
ship,  which  both  gods  and  men  wish  may  be  finished  as 
late  as  possible.  But  in  this  flood  Nag]  far  gets  afloat. 
The  giant  Hrym  is  its  steersman, 

"  The  Feni'is-wolf  advances  w'ith  wide-open  mouth  ; 
the  u^yper  jaio  reaches  to  heaven  and  the  lower  jaw  is  on 
the  earth.'''' 

That  is  to  say,  the  comet  extends  from  the  earth  to 
the  sun. 

"He  would  open  it  still  wider  had  he  room." 

That  is  to  say,  the  space  between  the  sun  and  earth 
is  not  great  enoitgh  ;  the  tail  of  the  comet  reaches  even 
beyond  the  earth. 

'^  Fire  flashes  from  his  eyes  and  nostrils.'''' 

A  recent  writer  says  : 

"  When  bright  comets  happen  to  come  very  near  to 
the  sun,  and  are  subjected  to  close  observation  under  the 


144  THE  LEGENDS. 

advantages  which  the  fine  telescopes  of  the  present  day 
afford,  a  series  of  remarkable  changes  is  found  to  take 
place  in  their  luminous  configuration.  First,  Je^s  of  bright 
light  start  out  frortx  the  nucleus,  and  move  through  the 
fainter  haze  of  the  coma  toward  the  sun  ;  and  then  these 
jets  are  turned  backward  round  the  edge  of  the  coma,  and 
stream  from  it,  behind  the  comet,  until  they  are  fashioned 
into  a  tail."  * 

"The  Midgard-serpent  vomits  forth  venom,  defiling 
all  the  air  and  the  sea  ;  he  is  very  terrible,  and  places 
himself  side  by  side  xoith  the  icolfy 

The  two  comets  move  together,  like  Biela's  two  frag- 
ments ;  and  they  give  out  poison — the  carbureted-hydro- 
gen  gas  revealed  by  the  spectroscope. 

"  In  the  midst  of  this  clash  and  din  the  heavens  are 
rent  in  twain,  and  the  sons  of  Muspelheim  come  riding 
through  the  opening." 

Muspelheim,  according  to  Professor  Anderson,f  means 
"the  day  of  judgment."  Muspel  signifies  an  abode  of 
fire,  peopled  by  fiends.  So  that  this  passage  means,  that 
the  heavens  are  split  open,  or  appear  to  be,  by  the  great 
shining  comet,  or  comets,  striking  the  earth  ;  it  is  a  world 
of  fire  ;  it  is  the  Day  of  Judgment. 

"  Surt  rides  first,  and  before  him  and  after  \i\vsx  flames 
burning  fire.''"' 

Surt  is  a  demon  associated  with  the  comet  ;  J  he  is 
the  same  as  the  destructive  god  of  the  Egyptian  mythol- 
ogy. Set,  who  destroys  the  sun.  It  may  mean  the  blazing 
nucleus  of  the  comet. 

"  He  has  a  very  good  sword  that  shines  brighter  than 
the  sun.  As  they  ride  over  Bifrost  it  breaks  to  pieces, 
as  has  before  been  stated." 

*  "Edinburgh  Review,"  October,  ISH,  p.  207. 
f  "  Norse  Mythology,"  p.  454.  X  Ibid.,  p.  458. 


RAGNAROK.  145 

Bifrost,  we  shall  Lave  reason  to  see  hereafter,  was  a 
prolongation  of  land  westward  from  Europe,  which  con- 
nected the  British  Islands  with  the  island-home  of  the 
gods,  or  the  godlike  race  of  men. 

There  are  geological  proofs  that  such  a  land  once 
existed.  A  writer,  Thomas  Butler  Gunn,  in  a  recent 
number  of  an  English  publication,*  says  : 

"Tennyson's  'Voyage  of  Maeldune'  is  a  magnificent 
allegorical  expansion  of  this  idea  ;  and  the  laureate  has 
also  finely  commemorated  the  old  belief  in  the  country 
of  Lyonnesse,  extending  beyond  the  hounds  of  Cornwall : 

'A  land  of  old  upheaven  from  the  abyss 
By  fire,  to  sink  into  the  abyss  again  ; 
AVhere  fragments  of  forgotten  peoples  dwelt, 
And  the  long  mountains  ended  in  a  coast 
Of  ever-shifting  sands,  and  far  away 
The  phantom  circle  of  a  moaning  sea.' 

"Cornishmen  of  the  last  generation  used  to  tell  stories 
of  strange  household  relics  picked  up  at  the  very  low 
tides,  nay,  even  of  the  quaint  habitations  seen  fathoms 
deep  in  the  water." 

There  are  those  who  believe  that  these  Scandinavian 
Eddas  came,  in  the  first  instance,  from  Druidical  Briton 
sources. 

The  Edda  may  be  interpreted  to  mean  that  the  Comet 
strikes  the  planet  west  of  Europe,  and  crushes  down  some 
land  in  that  quartei',  called  "  the  bridge  of  Bifrost." 

Then  follows  a  mighty  battle  between  the  gods  and 
the  Comet.  It  can  have,  of  course,  but  one  termination  ; 
but  it  will  recur  again  and  again  in  the  legends  of  differ- 
ent nations.  It  was  necessary  that  the  gods,  the  protect- 
ors of  mankind,  should  struggle  to  defend  them  against 
these  strange  and  terrible  enemies.     But  their  very  help- 


*"  All  the  Year  Round." 


146  THE  LEGEXDS. 

lessness  and   their  deaths  show  how  immense  was  the 
calamity  which  had  befallen  the  world. 
The  Edda  continues  : 

"  The  sons  of  Muspel  direct  then-  course  to  the  plain 
which  is  called  Vigrid.  Thither  repair  also  the  Fenris- 
wolf  and  the  Midgard-serpent." 

Both  the  comets  have  fallen  on  the  earth. 

"  To  this  place  have  also  come  Lolce  "  (the  evil  genius 
of  the  Norse  mythology)  "  and  Hrym,  and  with  him  all  the 
Frost  giants.  In  Loke's  company  are  all  the  friends  of 
Hel"  (the  goddess  of  death).  "The  sons  of  Muspel  have 
then  their  efficient  bands  alone  by  themselves.  The  plain 
Yigrid  is  one  hundred  miles  (rasts)  on  each  side." 

That  is  to  say,  all  these  evil  forces,  the  comets,  the 
fire,  the  devil,  and  death,  have  taken  possession  of  the 
great  plain,  the  heart  of  the  civilized  land.  The  scene  is 
located  in  this  spot,  because  probably  it  was  from  this  sj^ot 
the  legends  were  afterward  disj^ersed  to  all  the  world. 

It  is  necessary  for  the  defenders  of  mankind  to  rouse 
themselves.  There  is  no  time  to  be  lost,  and,  accord- 
ingly, we  learn — 

""While  these  things  are  happening,  Heimdal"  (he  was 
the  guardian  of  the  Bifrost-bridge)  "  stands  up,  blows  with 
all  his  might  in  the  Gjallar-horn  and  OAcal'ens  all  the  f/ods, 
who  thereupon  hold  counsel.  Odin  rides  to  Mimer's  well 
to  ask  advice  of  Mimer  for  himself  and  his  folk. 

"  Then  quivers  the  ash  Ygdrasil,  and  all  things  in 
heaven  and  earth  tremble." 

The  ash  Ygdrasil  is  the  tree-of-lif e  ;  the  tree  of  the 
ancient  tree-worship  ;  the  tree  which  stands  on  the  top  of 
the  pyramid  in  the  island-birthplace  of  the  Aztec  race ; 
the  tree  referred  to  in  the  Hindoo  legends. 

"  The  asas  "  (the  godlike  men)  "  and  the  einherjes  "  (the 
heroes)  "  arm  themselves  and  speed  forth  to  the  battle- 
field.  Odin  rides  first  ;  with  his  golden  helmet,  resplendent 


RAGNAROK.  147 

byrnie,  and  his  spear  Gungner,  be  advances  against  tbe 
Fenris-wolf  "  (the  first  comet).  "Tbor  stands  by  bis  side, 
but  can  give  bim  no  assistance,  for  be  bas  bis  bands  full 
in  bis  struggle  with  tbe  Midgard-serpent "  (tbe  second 
comet).  "  Frey  encounters  Surt,  and  heavy  blows  are  ex- 
changed ere  Frey  falls.  Tbe  cause  of  his  death  is  that  be 
bas  not  that  good  sword  which  be  gave  to  Skirner.  Even 
the  dog  Garra  "  (another  comet),  "that  was  bound  before 
the  Gnipa-cave,  gets  loose.  He  is  the  greatest  plague. 
He  contends  with  Tyr,  and  they  kill  each  other.  Tbor 
gets  great  renown  by  slaying  tbe  Midgard-serpent,  but 
retreats  only  nine  paces  Avben  he  falls  to  tbe  earth  dead, 
poisoned  by  the  venom  that  the  serpent  blows  upon  him.'''' 

He  bas  breathed  the  carbureted-bydrogen  gas  ! 

"  Tbe  wolf  swallows  Odin,  and  thus  causes  his  death  ; 
but  Vidar  immediately  turns  and  rushes  at  tbe  wolf, 
placing  one  foot  on  his  nether  jaw. 

["  On  this  foot  be  has  the  shoe,  for  which  materials 
have  been  gathering  through  all  ages,  namely,  the  strips 
of  leather  which  men  cut  off  from  tbe  toes  and  heels  of 
shoes  ;  wherefore  he  who  wishes  to  render  assistance  to 
the  asas  must  cast  these  strips  away."] 

This  last  paragraph,  like  that  concerning  the  ship 
Naglfar,  is  probably  tbe  interpolation  of  some  later  age. 
The  narrative  continues  : 

"With  one  hand  Vidar  seizes  tbe  upper  jaw  of  the 
wolf,  and  thus  rends  asunder  bis  mouth.  Thus  tbe  wolf 
perishes.  Loke  fights  with  Heimdal,  and  they  kill  each 
other.  Thereupon  Surt  flings  fire  over  the  earth,  and 
burns  up  all  the  loorldP 

This  narrative  is  from  the  Younger  Edda.  Tbe  Elder 
Edda  is  to  the  same  purpose,  but  there  are  more  allusions 
to  tbe  effect  of  the  catastrophe  on  tbe  earth  : 

"The  eagle  screams. 
And  tcith  pale  beak  tears  corjjses.  .  .  . 
Mountains  dash  together, 


148  THE  LEGEXDS. 

Heroes  go  the  way  to  Hel, 

And  heaven  is  rent  in  twain.  .  .  . 

All  men  abandon  their  homesteads 

When  the  warder  of  Midgard 

In  wrath  slays  the  serpent. 

Tfie  siai  f/roics  dark, 

The  earth  si)iks  into  the  sea, 

The  bright  stars 

From  heaven  vanish  ; 

I^ire  7'ages, 

Seat  blazes, 

And  high  flames  play 

'  Gainst  heaven  itself.''^ 

And  what  follow  then?  Ice  and  cold  and  winter. 
For  although  these  things  come  first  in  the  narrative  of 
the  Edda,  yet  we  are  told  that  "  before  these  "  things,  to 
wit,  the  cold  winters,  there  occurred  the  wickedness  of 
the  world,  and  the  wolves  and  the  serpent  made  their 
appearance.  So  that  the  events  transpired  in  the  order 
in  which  I  have  given  them. 

"  First  there  is  a  winter  called  the  Fimbul  winter," 

"  The  mighty,  the  great,  the  iron  winter,"  * 

"  When  snow  drives  from,  all  quarters,  the  frosts  are 
so  severe,  the  winds  so  keen,  there  is  no  joy  in  the  sun. 
There  are  three  such  tcinters  in  succession,  without  any 
intervening  summery 

Here  we  have  the  Glacial  period  which  followed  the 
Drift.  Three  years  of  incessant  wind,  and  snow,  and 
intense  cold. 

The  Elder  Edda  says,  speaking  of  the  Fenris-wolf  : 

"  It  feeds  on  the  bodies 
Of  men,  when  they  die  ; 
The  seats  of  the  gods 
It  stains  with  red  bloods 


*  "  Xorse  Mythology,"  p.  4-14. 


MAGNA  ROK.  149 

This  probably  refers  to  the  iron-stained  red  clay  cast 
down  by  the  Comet  over  a  large  part  of  the  earth  ;  the 
"  seats  of  the  gods  "  means  the  home  of  the  god-like  race, 
which  was  doubtless  covered,  like  Europe  and  America, 
Avith  red  clay  ;  the  waters  which  ran  from  it  must  have 
been  the  color  of  blood. 

"  TJie  sunshhie  blackens 
In  the  summers  thereafter, 
And  the  weather  grows  bad." 

In  the  Younger  Edda  (p.  57)  we  are  given  a  still  more 

precise  description  of  the  Ice  age  : 

"  Replied  Har,  explaining,  that  as  soon  as  the  streams, 
that  are  called  Elivogs  "  (the  rivers  from  under  ice),  "  had 
came  so  far  that  the  venomous  yeast "  (the  clay  ?)  "  which 
flowed  with  them  hardened,  as  does  dross  that  runs  from 
the  fire,  then  it  turned  "  (as)  "  into  ice.  And  when  this  ice 
stopped  and  flowed  no  more,  then  gathered  over  it  the 
drizzling  rain  that  arose  from  the  venom"  (the  clay), 
"and  froze  into  rime"  (ice),  ^' and  one  layer  of  ice  loas 
laid  upon  another  clear  into  the  Ginungagapy 

Ginungagap,  we  are  told,*  was  the  name  applied  in 
the  eleventh  century  by  the  Northmen  to  the  ocean  be- 
tween Greenland  and  Yinland,  or  America.  It  doubtless 
meant  originally  the  whole  of  the  Atlantic  Ocean.  The 
clay,  when  it  first  fell,  was  probably  full  of  chemical  ele- 
ments, which  rendered  it,  and  the  waters  which  filtered 
through  it,  unfit  for  human  use  ;  clay  waters  are,  to  this 
day,  the  worst  in  the  vrorld. 

"Then  said  Jaf  nhar :  'All  that  part  of  Ginungagap 
that  turns  to  the  north'  (the  north  Atlantic)  'was  filled 
with  thick  and  heavy  ice  and  rime,  and  everywhere  within 
were  drizzling  rains  and  gusts.  But  the  south  part  of 
Ginungagap  was  lighted  up  by  the  glowing  sparks  that 
flew  out  of  Muspelheim.'  " 

*  "Xorsc  Mythology,"  p.  447. 


150  THE  LEGENDS. 

The  ice  and  rime  to  the  Dorth  represent  the  age  of 
ice  and  snow.  Muspelheim  was  the  torrid  country  of  the 
south,  over  which  the  clouds  could  not  yet  form  in  con- 
sequence of  the  heat — Africa. 

But  it  can  not  last  forever.  The  clouds  disappear  ;  the 
floods  find  their  way  back  to  the  ocean  ;  nature  begins  to 
decorate  once  more  the  scarred  and  crushed  face  of  the 
world.  But  where  is  the  human  race  ?  The  "  Younger 
Edda"  tells  us: 

"  During  the  conflagration  caused  by  Surt's  fire,  a 
woman  by  the  name  of  Lif  and  a  man  named  Lifthraser 
lie  concealed  in  llodmimcr's  hold,  or  forest.  The  dew  of 
the  dawn  serves  them  for  food,  and  so  great  a  race  shall 
spring  from  them,  that  their  descendants  shall  soon  spread 
over  the  whole  earth,"  * 

The  "Elder  Edda"  says: 

"  Lif  and  Lifthraser 
Will  lie  hid 
In  Hodmimer's-holt ; 
The  morning  dew 
They  have  for  food. 
From  them  are  the  races  descended." 

Holt  is  a  grove,  or  forest,  or  hold  ;  it  was  probably  a 
cave.  We  shall  see  that  nearly  all  the  legends  refer  to  the 
caves  in  which  mankind  escaped  from  destruction. 

This  statement, 

"  Fi'om  them  are  the  races  descended," 

shows  that  this  is  not  prophecy,  but  history  ;  it  refers  to 
the  past,  not  to  the  future  ;  it  describes  not  a  Day  of 
Judgment  to  come,  but  one  that  has  already  fallen  on 
the  human  family. 

Two  others,  of  the  godlike  race,  also  escaped  in  some 

*  "  Norse  Mythology,"  p.  429. 


RAONAROK.  151 

way   not   indicated  ;    Yidar  and  Vale  are  their  names. 
They,  too,  had  probably  taken  refuge  in  some  cavern. 

"  Neither  the  sea  nor  Surt's  fire  had  harmed  them,  and 
they  dwell  on  the  plains  of  Ida,  where  Asgard  teas  before. 
Thither  come  also  the  sons  of  Thor,  Mode,  and  Magne, 
and  thev  have  Mjolner.  Then  come  Balder  and  Hoder 
from  HeV 

Mode  and  Magne  are  children  of  Thor  ;  they  belong 
to  the  godlike  race.  They,  too,  have  escaped.  Mjolner 
is  Thor's  hammer.  Balder  is  the  Sun ;  he  has  returned 
from  the  abode  of  death,  to  which  the  comet  consigned 
him.     Hoder  is  the  Night. 

All  this  means  that  tbe  fragments  and  remnants  of 
humanity  reassemble  on  the  plain  of  Ida — the  plain  of 
Vigrid — where  the  battle  was  fought.  They  possess  the 
works  of  the  old' civilization,  represented  by  Thor's  ham- 
mer ;  and  the  day  and  night  once  more  return  after  the 
long  midnight  blackness. 

And  the  Yala  looks  again  upon  a  renewed  and  rejuve- 
nated world  : 

"  She  sees  arise 

The  second  time. 

From  the  sea,  the  earth. 

Completely  green. 

The  cascades  fall. 

The  eagle  soars. 

From  lofty  mounts 

Pursues  its  prey." 

It  is  once  more  the  glorious,  the  sun-lighted  world  ; 
the  world  of  flashing  seas,  dancing  streams,  and  green 
leaves  ;  with  the  eagle,  high  above  it  all. 


while 


"  Batting  the  sunny  ceiling  of  the  globe 
With  his  dark  wings  ; " 

"  The  wild  cataracts  leap  in  glory." 


152  THE  LEGENDS. 

What  history,  what  poetry,  what  beauty,  what  ines- 
timable pictures  of  an  infinite  past  have  lain  hidden  away 
in  tliese  Sagas — the  despised  heritage  of  all  the  blue-eyed, 
light-haired  races  of  the  world  ! 

Rome  and  Greece  can  not  parallel  this  marvelous  story  : 

"  The  gods  convene 
On  Ida's  plains. 
And  talk  of  the  jiowerful 
Midgard-serpent ; 
They  call  to  mind 
The  Fenris-wolf 
And  the  ancient  runes 
Of  the  mighty  Odin." 

What  else  can  mankind  think  of,  or  dream  of,  or  talk 
of  for  the  next  thousand  years  but  this  awful,  this  un- 
paralleled calamity  through  which  the  race  has  passed  ? 

A  long-subsequent  but  most  ancient  and  cultivated 
people,  whose  memory  has,  for  us,  almost  faded  from  the 
earth,  will  thereafter  embalm  the  great  drama  in  legends, 
myths,  prayers,  poems,  and  sagas  ;  fragments  of  which 
are  found  to-day  dispersed  through  all  literatures  in  all 
lands  ;  some  of  them,  as  we  shall  see,  having  found  their 
way  even  into  the  very  Bible  revered  alike  of  Jew  and 
Christian  : 

The  Edda  continues, 

"  Then  again 
The  wonderful 
Golden  tablets 
Are  found  in  the  gi'ass  : 
In  time's  morning, 
The  leader  of  the  gods 
And  Odin's  race 
Possessed  them." 

And  what  a  find  was  that !  This  2)Oor  remnant  of 
humanity  discovers  "the  golden  tablets"  of  the  former 


RAGNAROK.  153 

civilization.  Doubtless,  the  inscribed  tablets,  by  which 
the  art  of  writing  survived  to  the  race  ;  for  what  would 
tablets  be  without  inscriptions?  For  they  talk  of  "the 
ancient  runes  of  mighty  Odin,"  that  is,  of  the  runic  let- 
ters, the  alphabetical  writing.  And  we  shall  see  here- 
after that  this  view  is  confirmed  from  other  sources. 
There  follows  a  happy  age  : 

"  The  fields  unsown 
Yield  their  growth  ; 
All  ills  cease. 
Balder  comes. 
Hoder  and  Balder, 
Those  heavenly  gods, 
Dwell  together  in  Odin's  halls." 

The  great  catastrophe  is  past.  Man  is  saved.  The 
world  is  once  more  fair.  The  sun  shines  again  in  heaven. 
Night  and  day  follow  each  other  in  endless  revolution 
around  the  happy  globe.     Ragnarok  is  past. 


154  THE  LEGENDS. 


CHAPTER  V. 

THE  CONFLAGRATION  OF  PHAETON. 

Now  let  us  turn  to  the  mythology  of  the  Latins,  as 
preserved  in  the  pages  of  Ovid,  one  of  the  greatest  of  the 
poets  of  ancient  Rome.* 

Here  we  have  the  burning  of  the  world  involved  in 
the  myth  of  Phaeton,  son  of  Phcebus — Ajjollo — the  Sun — 
who  drives  the  chariot  of  his  father  ;  he  can  not  control 
the  horses  of  the  Sun,  they  run  away  with  him  ;  they 
come  so  near  the  earth  as  to  set  it  on  fire,  and  Phaeton 
is  at  last  killed  by  Jove,  as  he  killed  Typhon  in  the  Greek 
legends,  to  save  heaven  and  earth  from  complete  and  com- 
mon ruin. 

This  is  the  story  of  the  conflagration  as  treated  by  a 
civilized  mind,  explained  by  a  myth,  and  decorated  with 
the  flowers  and  foliage  of  poetry. 

We  shall  see  many  things  in  the  narrative  of  Ovid 
which  strikingly  confirm  our  theory. 

Phaeton,  to  prove  that  he  is  really  the  son  of  Phoebus, 
the  Sun,  demands  of  his  jDarent  the  right  to  drive  his 
chariot  for  one  day.  The  sun-god  reluctantly  consents, 
not  without  many  pleadings  that  the  infatuated  and  rash 
boy  would  give  up  his  inconsiderate  ambition.  Phaeton 
persists.     The  old  man  says  : 

"  Even  the  ruler  of  vast  Olympus,  who  hurls  the 
ruthless  bolts  with  his  terrific  right  hand,  can  not  guide 

*  "  The  Metamorphoses,"  book  xi,  fable  1. 


THE  COXFLAGRATIOX  OF  PHAETON.  155 

this  chariot  ;  and  yet,  what  have  we  greater  than  Jupiter  ? 
The  first  part  of  the  road  is  steep,  and  such  as  the  horses, 
thoiigh  fresh  in  the  morning,  can  hardly  climb.  In  the 
middle  of  the  heaven  it  is  high  aloft,  whence  it  is  often 
a  source  of  fear,  even  to  myself,  to  look  down  upon  the 
sea  and  the  earth,  and  my  breast  trembles  with  fearful 
apprehensions.  The  last  stage  is  a  steep  descent,  and 
requires  a  sure  command  of  the  horses.  .  .  .  Besides,  the 
heavens  are  carried  round  with  a  constant  rotation,  and 
carrying  with  them  the  lofty  stars,  and  whirl  them  with 
rapid  revolution.  Against  this  I  have  to  contend  ;  and 
that  force  which  overcomes  all  other  things  does  not  over- 
come me,  and  I  can  carried  in  a  contrary  direction  to  the 
rapid  icorld.-'' 

Here  we  seem  to  have  a  glimpse  of  some  higher  and 
older  learning,  mixed  with  the  astronomical  errors  of  the 
day  :  Ovid  supposes  the  rapid  world  to  move,  revolve,  one 
way,  while  the  sun  appears  to  move  another. 

But  Phaeton  insists  on  undertaking  the  dread  task. 
The  doors  of  Aurora  are  opened,  "  her  halls  filled  with 
roses  "  ;  the  stars  disappear  ;  the  Hours  yoke  the  horses, 
"  filled  Avith  the  juice  of  ambrosia,''^  the  father  anoints 
the  face  of  his  son  with  a  hallowed  drug  that  he  may  the 
better  endure  the  great  heat  ;  the  reins  are  handed  him, 
and  the  fatal  race  begins.  Phoebus  has  advised  him  not 
to  drive  too  high,  or  "  thou  wilt  set  on  fire  the  signs  of 
the  heavens  " — the  constellations  ; — nor  too  low,  or  he 
will  consume  the  earth. 

"  In  the  mean  time  the  swift  Pyroeis,  and  Eoiis  and 
^thon,  the  horses  of  the  sun,  and  Phlegon,  the  fourth, 
fill  the  air  with  neighings,  sending  forth  flames,  and  beat 
the  barriers  with  their  feet.  .  .  .  They  take  the  road  .  .  . 
they  cleave  the  resisting  clouds,  and,  raised  aloft  by  their 
wings,  they  pass  by  the  east  winds  that  had  arisen  from 
the  same  parts.  But  the  weight "  (of  Phaeton)  "  was  light, 
and  such  as  the  horses  of  the  sun  could  not  feel  ;  and  the 
yoke  was  deficient  of  its  wonted  weight.  .  .  .  Soon  as 


156  THE  LEGEXDS. 

the  steeds  had  perceived  this  they  rush  on  and  leave  the 
beaten  track,  and  run  not  in  tlie  order  in  which  they  did 
before.  He  himself  becomes  alarmed,  and  knows  not 
which  way  to  turn  the  reins  intrusted  to  him  ;  nor  does 
he  know  where  the  way  is,  nor,  if  he  did  know,  could  he 
control  them.  Then,  for  the  first  time,  did  the  cold  Tri- 
ones  grow  warm  with  sunbeams,  and  attempt,  in  vain,  to 
be  dipped  in  the  sea  that  was  forbidden  to  them.  And 
the  Serpent,  which  is  situate  next  to  the  icy  pole,  being 
before  torpid  with  cold,  and  formidable  to  no  one,  grew 
warm,  and  regained  new  rage  for  the  heat.  And  they 
say  that  thou,  Bootes,  scoured  off  in  a  mighty  bustle, 
although  thou  wert  but  slow,  and  thy  cart  hindered  thee. 
But  when  from  the  height  of  the  skies  the  unhappy  Phae- 
ton looked  down  upon  the  earth  lying  far,  very  far  be- 
neath, he  grew  pale,  and  his  knees  shook  with  a  sudden 
terror  ;  and,  in  a  light  so  great,  darkness  overspread  his 
eyes.  And  now  he  could  wish  that  he  had  never  touched 
the  horses  of  his  father  ;  and  now  he  is  sorry  that  he 
knew  his  descent,  and  prevailed  in  his  request  ;  now  de- 
siring to  be  called  the  son  of  Merops." 

"  What  can  he  do  ?  .  .  .  He  is  stupefied  ;  he  neither 
lets  go  the  reins,  nor  is  able  to  control  them.  In  his 
fright,  too,  he  sees  strange  objects  scattered  everywhere 
in  various  parts  of  the  heavens,  and  the  forms  of  huge 
wild  beasts.  There  is  a  spot  where  the  Scorpion  bends 
his  arms  into  two  curves,  and,  with  his  tail  and  claws  bend- 
ing on  either  side,  he  extends  his  limbs  through  the  space 
of  two  signs  of  the  zodiac.  As  soon  as  the  youth  beheld 
him,  wet  with  the  sweat  of  black  venom,  and  threatening 
wounds  with  the  barbed  point  of  his  tail,  bereft  of  sense 
he  let  go  the  reins  in  a  chill  of  horror." 

Compare  the  course  which  Ovid  tells  us  Phaeton  pur- 
sued through  the  constellations,  past  the  Great  Serpent 
and  Bootes,  and  close  to  the  venomous  Scorpion,  with 
the  orbit  of  Donati's  comet  in  1858,  as  given  in  Schellen's 
great  work.* 

*  "  Spectrum  Analysis,"  p.  391. 


THE  COX  FLAG  RATION   OF  PHAETON. 


157 


The  path  described  hy  Ovid  shows  that  the  comet 
came  from  the  nortli  part  of  the  heavens  ;  and  this  agrees 
with  what  we  know  of  the  Drift  ;  the  markings  indicate 
that  it  came  from  the  north. 

The  horses  now  range  at  large  ;  "  they  go  through 


158  THE  LEGENDS. 

the  air  of  an  unknown  region  ;  .  .  .  they  rush  on  the  stars 
fixed  in  the  sky  "  ;  they  approach  the  earth. 

"  The  moon,  too,  wonders  that  her  brother's  horses 
run  loicer  than,  her  own,  and  the  scorched  clouds  send 
forth  smoke.  As  each  region  is  most  elevated  it  is  caught 
by  the  flames,  and  cleft,  it  makes  vast  chasms,  its  moist- 
itre  being  carried  aioay.  The  grass  grows  pale  ;  the 
trees,  with  their  foliage,  are  burned  up,  and  the  dry, 
standing  corn  affords  fuel  for  its  own  destruction.  But  I 
am  complaining  of  trifling  ills.  Great  cities  perish,  to- 
gether with  their  fortifications,  and  the  flames  turn  lohole 
nations  into  ashes  ;  woods,  together  with  mountains,  are 
on  fire.  Athos  burns,  and  the  Cilician  Taurus,  and  Tmo- 
lus,  and  Qllta,  and  Ida,  now  dry  but  once  most  famed  for 
its  springs,  and  Helicon,  the  resort  of  the  virgin  Muses, 
and  Hsemus,  not  yet  called  CEagrian.  uStna  burns  iii- 
tensely  vyith  redoubled  flames,  and  Parnassus,  with  its  two 
summits,  and  Eryx,  and  Cynthus,  and  Orthrys,  and  Rho- 
dope,  at  length  to  be  despoiled  of  its  snows,  and  Mimas, 
and  Dindyma,  and  Mycale,  and  Cithseron,  created  for  the 
sacred  rites.  Nor  does  its  cold  avail  even  Scythia  ;  Cau- 
casus is  on  fire,  and  Ossa  with  Pindus,  and  Olympus, 
greater  than  them  both,  and  the  lofty  Alps,  and  the  cloud- 
bearing  Apennines. 

"  Then,  indeed,  Phaeton  beholds  the  world  set  on  flre 
on  all  sides,  and  he  can  not  endure  heat  so  great,  and  he 
inhales  with  his  mouth  scorching  air,  as  though  from  a 
deep  furnace,  and  perceives  his  own  chariot  to  be  on  fire. 
And  neither  is  he  able  now  to  bear  the  ashes  and  the 
emitted  embers ;  and  on  every  side  he  is  involved  in  a 
heated  smoke.  Covered  with  a  pitchy  darkness,  he  knows 
not  whither  he  is  going,  nor  where  he  is,  and  is  hurried 
away  at  the  pleasure  of  the  winged  steeds.  They  believe 
that  it  was  then  that  the  nations  of  the  ^thiopnans  con- 
tracted their  black  hue,  the  blood  being  attracted  into  the 
surface  of  the  body.  Then  was  Libya  "  (Sahara  ?)  "  made 
dry  by  the  heat,  the  moisture  being  carried  off  ;  then 
with  disheveled  hair  the  Nymphs  lamented  the  springs 
and  the  lakes.  Bceotia  bewails  Dirce,  Argos  Amymone, 
and  Ephyre  the  waters  of  Pirene.     Nor  do  rivers  that 


THE  CONFLAGRATION   OF  PHAETON.  159 

have  banks  distant  remain  secure.  Tanais  smokes  in  the 
midst  of  its  waters,  and  the  aged  Peneus  and  Teuthran- 
tian  Caicus  and  rapid  Ismenus.  .  .  .  The  Babylonian 
Euphrates,  too,  was  on  fire,  Oi'ontes  was  in  flames,  and 
the  swift  Thermodon  and  Ganges  and  Phasis  and  Ister. 
Alpheus  hoils ;  the  banks  of  Spercheus  burn  ;  and  the 
gold  which  Tagus  carries  with  its  stream  melts  in  the 
flames.  The  river-birds,  too,  which  made  famous  the 
Masonian  banks  with  song,  grew  hot  in  the  middle  of 
Cayster.  The  Nile,  affrighted,  fled  to  the  remotest  parts 
of  the  earth  and  concealed  his  head,  which  still  lies  hid  ; 
his  seven  last  mouths  are  empty,  seven  channels  without 
any  streams.  The  same  fate  dries  up  the  Ismarian  rivers, 
Hebens  together  with  Strymon,  and  the  Hesperian  streams, 
the  Rhine,  the  Rhone,  and  the  Po,  and  the  Tiber,  to 
which  was  promised  the  sovereignty  of  the  world." 

In  other  words,  according  to  these  Roman  traditions 
here  poetized,  the  heat  dried  up  the  rivers  of  Europe,  Asia, 
and  Africa  ;  in  short,  of  all  the  known  Avorld. 

Ovid  continues  : 

"All  the  ground  bursts  asunder,  and  through  the 
chinks  the  light  penetrates  into  Tartarus,  and  startles 
the  infernal  king  with  his  spouse." 

We  have  seen  that  during  the  Drift  age  the  great 
clefts  in  the  earth,  the  fiords  of  the  north  of  Europe  and 
America,  occurred,  and  we  shall  see  hereafter  that,  ac- 
cording to  a  Central  American  legend,  the  red  rocks 
boiled  up  through  the  earth  at  this  time. 

"  The  ocean.,  too,  is  contracted,''^  says  Ovid,  "  and  that 
which  lately  was  sea  is  a  surface  of  parched  sand,  and 
the  mountains  which  the  deep  sea  has  covered,  start  up 
and  increase  the  number  of  the  scattered  Cyclades "  (a 
cluster  of  islands  in  the  ^gean  Sea,  surrounding  Delos 
as  though  with  a  circle,  whence  their  name)  ;  "  the  fishes 
sink  to  the  bottom,  and  the  crooked  dolphins  do  not  care 
to  raise  themselves  on  the  surface  into  the  air  as  usual. 
The  bodies  of  sea-calves  float  lifeless  on  their  backs  on 


IGO  THE  LEGENDS. 

the  top  of  the  water.  The  story,  too,  is  that  even  Nereus 
himself  and  Doris  and  their  daughters  lay  lad  in  the 
heated  caverns." 

All  this  could  scarcely  have  been  imagined,  and  yet  it 
agrees  precisely  with  what  we  can  not  but  believe  to 
have  been  the  facts.  Here  we  have  an  explanation  of 
how  that  vast  body  of  vapor  which  afterward  constituted 
great  snow-banks  and  ice-sheets  and  river-torrents  rose 
into  the  air.  Science  tells  us  that  to  make  a  woi*ld-wrap- 
ping  ice-sheet  two  miles  thick,  all  the  waters  of  the  ocean 
must  have  been  evaporated  ;  *  to  make  one  a  mile  thick 
would  take  one  half  the  waters  of  the  globe  ;  and  here 
we  find  this  Roman  poet,  who  is  repeating  the  legends  of 
his  race,  and  who  knew  nothing  about  a  Drift  age  or  an 
Ice  age,  telling  us  that  the  water  boiled  in  the  streams  ; 
that  the  bottom  of  the  Mediterranean  lay  exposed,  a  bed 
of  dry  sand  ;  that  the  fish  floated  dead  on  the  surface,  or 
fled  away  to  the  great  depths  of  the  ocean  ;  and  that  even 
the  sea-gods  "  hid  in  the  heated  caverns." 

Ovid  continues  : 

"  Three  times  had  Xeptune  ventured  with  stern  coun- 
tenance to  thrust  his  arms  out  of  the  water  ;  three  times 
he  was  unable  to  endure  the  scorching  heat  of  the  air." 

This  js  no  doubt  a  reminiscence  of  those  buman  beings 
who  sought  safety  in  the  water,  retreating  downward  into 
the  deep  as  the  heat  reduced  its  level,  occasionally  lifting 
up  their  heads  to  breathe  the  torrid  and  tainted  air. 

"  However,  the  genial  Earth,  as  she  was  surrounded  by 
the  sea,  amid  the  waters  of  the  main  "  (the  ocean) ;  "  the 
springs  dried  up  on  every  side  which  had  hidden  them- 
selves in  the  bowels  of  their  cavernous  parent,  burnt  up, 
lifted  up  her  all-productive  face  as  far  as  her  neck,  and 

*  "Science  and  Genesis,"  p.  125, 


THE  CONFLAGRATION   OF  PHAETON.  IGl 

placed  her  hand'  to  her  forehead,  and,  shaking  all  things 
with  a  vast  tvemhllng,  she  sanl:  doivn  a  little  and  retired 
below  the  spot  lohere  she  is  loont  to  be." 

Here  we  are  reminded  of  the  bridge  Bifrost,  spoken 
of  in  the  last  chapter,  which,  as  I  have  sbown,  was  prob- 
ably a  prolongation  of  land  reaching  from  Atlantis  to 
Europe,  and  which  the  Norse  legends  tell  us  sank  down 
under  the  feet  of  the  forces  of  Muspelheim,  in  the  day  of 
Ragnarok : 

"  And  thus  she  spoke  with  a  parched  voice  :  '  O  sov- 
ereign of  the  gods,  if  thou  approvest  of  this,  if  I  have 
deserved  it,  why  do  thy  lightnings  linger?  Let  me,  if 
doomed  to  perish  by  the  force  of  fire,  perish  by  thy 
flames  ;  and  alleviate  my  misfortune  by  being  the  author 
of  it.  With  difficulty,  indeed,  do  I  open  my  mouth  for 
these  very  words.  Behold  my  scorched  hair,  and  sitch  a 
quantity  of  ashes  over  my  eyes '  (the  Drift-deposits),  '  so 
inuch,  too,  over  my  features.  And  dost  thou  give  this  as 
my  recompense  ?  This  as  the  reward  of  raj  fertility  and 
my  duty,  in  that  I  endure  loounds  from  the  crooked  ploio 
and  harrows,  and  am  harassed  all  the  year  through,  in 
that  I  supply  green  leaves  for  the  cattle,  and  corn,  a 
wholesome  food,  for  mankind,  and  frankincense  for  your- 
selves. 

" '  But  still,  suppose  I  am  deserving  of  destruction, 
why  have  the  waves  deserved  tliis  ?  Why  has  thy  brother ' 
(Neptune)  '  deserved  it  ?  Why  do  the  seas  delivered  to 
him  by  lot  decrease,  and  why  do  they  recede  still  farther 
from  the  shy?  But  if  regard  neither  for  thy  brother  nor 
myself  influences  thee,  still  have  consideration  for  thy  own 
skies  ;  look  around  on  either  side,  see  how  each  pole  is 
smoking ;  if  the  fire  shall  injure  them,  thy  palace  will 
fall  in  ruins.  See  !  Atlas  himself  is  struggling,  and 
hardly  can  he  bear  the  glowing  heavens  on  his  shoul- 
ders. 

" '  If  the  sea,  if  the  earth,  if  the  palace  of  heaven,  per- 
ish, we  are  then  jumbled  into  the  old  chaos  again.  Save 
it  from  the  flames,  if  aught  still  survives,  and  provide  for 
the  preservation  of  the  universe.' 


1G2  THE  LEGENDS. 

"Thus  spoke  the  Earth;  nor,  indeed,  could  she  any- 
longer  endure  the  vapor,  nor  say  more,  and  she  withdrew 
her  face  within  herself,  and  the  caverns  neighboring  to  the 
shades  heloio. 

*'  But  the  omnipotent  father,  having  called  the  gods 
above  to  witness,  and  him,  too,  who  had  given  the  chariot 
to  Phaeton,  that  unless  he  gives  assistance  all  things  will 
perish  in  direful  ruin,  mounts  aloft  to  the  highest  eminence, 
from  which  he  is  wont  to  spread  the  clouds  over  the  spa- 
cious earth  ;  and  from  which  he  moves  his  thunders,  and 
hurls  the  brandished  lightnings.  Hut  then  he  had  neither 
clouds  that  he  cotdd  draio  over  the  earth,  7ior  showers  that 
he  coxdd pour  doion  from  the  sky.'''' 

That  is  to  say,  so  long  as  the  great  meteor  shone  in 
the  air,  and  for  some  time  after,  the  heat  was  too  intense 
to  permit  the  formation  of  either  clouds  or  rain  ;  these 
could  only  come  with  coolness  and  condensation. 

"  He  thundered  aloud,  and  darted  the  jDoised  lightning 
from  his  right  ear,  against  the  charioteer,  and  at  the  same 
moment  deprived  him  both  of  life  and  his  seat,  and  by  his 
ruthless  fires  restrained  the  flames.  The  horses  are  af- 
frighted, and,  making  a  bound  in  the  opposite  direction, 
they  shake  the  yoke  from  their  necks,  and  disengage 
themselves  from  the  torn  harness.  In  one  place  lie  the 
reins,  in  another  the  axle-tree  wi'enched  from  the  pole,  in 
another  part  are  the  spokes  of  the  broken  wheels,  and  the 
fragments  of  the  chariot  torn  in  jjieces  are  scattered  far 
and  wide.  But  Phaeton,  the  flames  consumii]g  his  yellow 
hair,  is  hurled  headlong.,  and  is  borne  in  a  long  track 
through  the  air,  as  sometimes  a  stcir  is  seen  to  fall  from 
the  serene  sky,  although  it  really  has  not  fallen.  Him  the 
great  Eridanus  receives  in  a  part  of  the  world  far  distant 
from  his  country,  and  bathes  his  foaming  face.  The  JHes- 
l)erian  JVaiads  commit  his  body,  smoking  from  the  three- 
forked  flames,  to  the  tomb,  and  inscribe  these  verses  on 
the  stone  :  '  Here  is  Phaeton  buried,  the  driver  of  his 
father's  chariot,  which,  if  he  did  not  manage,  still  he  mis- 
carried in  a  great  attempt.' 

"But  his  wretched  father"  (the  Sun)  "  had  hidden  his 


THE  COXFLAGRATIOy  OF  PHAETON.  163 

face  overcast  icith  hitter  sorrow,  and,  if  only  we  can  be- 
lieve it,  they  say  that  one  day  passed  vnthout  the  sun. 
The  flames  "  (of  the  fires  on  the  earth)  "  afforded  light, 
and  there  was  some  advantage  in  that  disaster." 

As  there  was  no  daily  return  of  the  sun  to  mark  the 
time,  that  one  day  of  darkness  was  probably  of  long 
duration  ;  it  may  have  endured  for  years. 

Then  follows  Ovid's  description  of  the  mourning  of 
Clymene  and  the  daughters  of  the  Sun  and  the  Naiads  for 
the  dead  Phaeton.  Cycnus,  king  of  Liguria,  grieves  for 
Phaeton  until  he  is  ti'ansformed  into  a  swan  ;  reminding 
one  of  the  Central  American  legend,  (which  I  shall  give 
hereafter,)  which  states  that  in  that  day  all  men  were 
turned  intp  goslings  or  geese,  a  reminiscence,  perhaps,  of 
those  who  saved  themselves  from  the  fire  by  taking  ref- 
uge in  the  waters  of  the  seas  : 

"  Cycnus  becomes  a  new  bird  ;  but  he  trusts  himself 
not  to  the  heavens  or  the  air,  as  being  mindful  of  the 
fire  unjustly  sent  from  thence.  He  frequents  the  pools 
and  the  xcile  lakes,  and,  abhorring  fire,  he  chooses  the 
streams,  the  very  contrary  of  flames. 

"  Meanwhile,  the  father  of  Phaeton  "  (the  Sun),  "  in 
squalid  garb  and  destitute  of  his  comeHness,  just  as 
he  is  icont  to  be  v;hen  he  suffers  an  eclipse  of  his  disk, 
abhors  both  the  light,  himself,  and  the  day  ;  and  gives 
his  mind  up  to  grief,  and  adds  resentment  to  his  sor- 
row." 

In  other  words,  the  poet  is  now  describing  the  age  of 
darkness,  which,  as  we  have  seen,  must  have  followed  the 
conflagration,  Avhen  the  condensing  vapor  wi'apped  the 
world  in  a  vast  cloak  of  cloud. 

The  Sun  refuses  to  go  again  on  his  daily  journey  ; 
just  as  we  shall  see  hereafter,  in  the  Amei'ican  le- 
gends, he  refuses  to  stir  until  threatened  or  coaxed  into 
action. 


1G4  THE  LEGENDS. 

"All  the  deities,"  says  Ovid,  "stand  around  the  Sun 
as  he  says  such  things,  and  they  entreat  him,  with  sup- 
pliant voice,  7iot  to  determine  to  bring  darkness  over  the 
tcorld.^^  At  length  they  induce  the  enraged  and  bereaved 
father  to  resume  his  task, 

"  But  the  omnipotent  father  "  (Jupiter)  "  surveys  the 
vast  walls  of  heaven,  and  carefully  searches  that  no  part, 
impaired  by  the  violence  of  the  fire,  may  fall  into  ruin. 
After  he  has  seen  them  to  be  secure  and  in  their  own 
strength,  he  examines  the  earth,  and  the  icorks  of  man  ; 
yet  a  care  for  his  own  Arcadia  is  more  particularly  his 
object.  He  restores,  too,  the  springs  and  the  rivers,  that 
had  not  yet  dared  to  flow,  he  gives  grass  to  the  earth,  green 
leaves  to  the  trees ;  and  orders  the  injured  forests  again  to 
be  green." 

The  work  of  renovation  has  begun  ;  the  condensing 
moisture  renews  the  springs  and  rivers,  the  green  man- 
tle of  verdure  once  more  covers  the  earth,  and  from  the 
waste  places  the  beaten  and  burned  trees  put  forth  new 
sprouts. 

The  legend  ends,  like  Ragnarok,  in  a  beautiful  picture 
of  a  regenerated  world. 

Divest  this  poem  of  the  myth  of  Phaeton,  and  vv^e 
have  a  very  faithful  tradition  of  the  conflagration  of  the 
world  caused  by  the  comet. 

The  cause  of  the  trouble  is  a  something  which  takes 
place  high  in  the  heavens  ;  it  rushes  through  space  ;  it 
threatens  the  stars  ;  it  traverses  particular  constellations  ; 
it  is  disastrous ;  it  has  yellow  hair  ;  it  is  associated  with 
great  heat ;  it  sets  the  world  on  fire  ;  it  dries  up  the  seas  ; 
its  remains  are  scattered  over  the  earth  ;  it  covers  the 
earth  with  ashes  ;  the  sun  ceases  to  appear  ;  there  is  a 
time  when  he  is,  as  it  were,  in  eclipse,  darkened  ;  after 
a  while  he  returns  ;  verdure  comes  again  upon  the  earth, 
the  springs  and  rivers  reappear,  the  world  is  renewed. 
During  this  catastrophe  man  has  hidden  himself,  swan- 


THE  CONFLAGRATION  OF  PHAETON.  165 

like,  in  the  waters  ;  oi-  the  intelligent  children  of  the 
earth  betake  themselves  to  deep  caverns  for  protection 
from  the  conflagration. 

How  completely  does  all  this  accord,  in  chronological 
order  and  in  its  details,  with  the  Scandinavian  legend  ; 
and  with  what  reason  teaches  us  must  have  been  the  con- 
sequences to  the  earth  if  a  comet  had  fallen  upon  it ! 

And  the  most  ancient  of  the  ancient  world,  the  nation 
that  stood  farthest  back  in  historical  time,  the  Egyptians, 
believed  that  this  legend  of  Phaeton  really  rej^rosented 
the  contact  of  the  earth  with  a  comet. 

When  Solon,  the  Greek  lawgiver,  visited  Egypt,  six 
hundred  years  before  the  Christian  era,  he  talked  with  the 
priests  of  Sais  about  the  Deluge  of  Deucalion.  I  quote 
the  following  from  Plato  ("Dialogues,"  xi,  517,  Timceiis) : 

"  Thereupon,  one  of  the  priests,  who  was  of  very  great 
age,  said,  '  O  Solon,  Solon,  you  Hellenes  are  but  children, 
and  there  is  never  an  old  man  who  is  an  Hellene.'  Solon, 
hearing  this,  said,  'What  do  you  mean?'  'I  mean  to 
say,'  he  replied,  '  that  in  mind  you  are  all  young  ;  there 
is  no  old  opinion  handed  down  among  you  by  ancient 
tradition,  nor  any  science  which  is  hoary  with  age.  And 
I  will  tell  you  the  reason  of  this  :  there  have  been,  and 
there  will  be  again,  many  destructions  of  mankind  arising 
out  of  many  causes.  There  is  a  story  which  even  you 
have  preserved,  that  once  upon  a  time  Phaethon,  the  son 
of  Helios,  having  yoked  the  steeds  in  his  father's  chariot, 
because  he  was  not  able  to  drive  them  in  the  path  of  his 
father,  burnt  up  all  that  was  upon  the  earth,  and  was 
himself  destroyed  by  a  thunder-bolt.  Now,  this  has  the 
form  of  a  myth,  but  really  signifies  a  declination  of  the 
bodies  moving  around  the  earth  and  in  the  heavens,  and 
a  great  conflagration  of  things  upon  the  cfrr^A  recurring 
at  long  intervals  of  time  :  when  this  happens,  those  who 
live  upon  the  mountains  and  in  dry  and  lofty  places  are 
more  liable  to  destruction  than  those  who  dwell  by  rivers 
or  on  the  sea-shore.' " 


166  THE  LEGEXDS. 


CHAPTER  YI. 

OTHER  LEGEXDS  OF  THE  COXFLAGBATION. 

The  first  of  these,  and  the  most  remarkable  of  all,  is 
the  legend  of  one  of  the  Central  American  nations,  pre- 
served not  by  tradition  alone,  but  committed  to  writing 
at  some  time  in  the  remote  past. 

In  the  "Codex  Chimalpopoca,"  one  of  the  sacred 
books  of  the  Toltecs,  the  author,  speaking  of  the  destruc- 
tion which  took  place  by  fire,  says  : 

"The  third  sun"  (or  era)  "is  called  Quia- Tonat lull, 
sun  of  rain,  because  there  fell  a  rain  of  fire ;  all  which 
existed  burned  ;  and  there  fell  a  rain  of  f/ ravel.'''' 

"  They  also  narrate  that  while  the  sandstone,  which 
we  now  see  scattered  about,  and  the  tetzontli  {amyg- 
daloide  poreuse — trap  or  basaltic  rocks),  '  boiled  xcith 
great  tumult,  there  also  rose  the  rocks  of  vermilion 
color.'" 

That  is  to  say,  the  basaltic  and  red  trap-rocks  burst 
through  the  great  cracks  made,  at  that  time,  in  the  sur- 
face of  the  disturbed  earth. 

"Now,  this  was  in  the  year  Ce  Tecpafl,  One  Flint,  it 
was  the  day  J^ahui- Quiahuitl,  Fourth  Rain.  Now,  in 
this  day,  in  which  men  were  lost  and  destroyed  in  a  rain 
of  fire,  they  icere  transformed  into  goslings  ;  the  sun  it- 
self v;as  on  fire,  and  everything,  together  with  the  houses, 
was  consumed."  * 

*  "  The  North  Americans  of  Antiquity,"  p.  499. 


OTHER  LEGENDS   OF  THE   CONFLAGRATION.      1G7 

Here  we  have  tlie  whole  story  told  in  little  :  "  Fii-e 
fell  from  heaven,"  the  comet ;  "  the  sun  itself  was  on 
fire  "  ;  the  comet  reached  to,  or  appeared  to  reach  to,  the 
sun  ;  or  its  head  had  fallen  into  the  sun  ;  or  the  terri- 
ble object  may  have  been  mistaken  for  the  sun  on  fire. 
^^ There  teas  a  rain  of  (jraveV — the  Drift  fell  from  the 
comet.  There  is  also  some  allusion  to  the  sandstones 
scattered  about ;  and  we  have  another  reference  to  the 
great  breaks  in  the  earth's  crust,  caused  either  by  the 
shock  of  contact  with  the  comet,  or  the  electrical  disturb- 
ances of  the  time  ;  and  we  are  told  that  the  trap-rocks, 
and  rocks  of  vermilion  color,  boiled  up  to  the  surface 
with  great  tumult.  Mankind  was  destroyed,  except  such 
as  fled  into  the  seas  and  lakes,  and  there  plunged  into  the 
water,  and  lived  like  "  goslings." 

Can  any  one  suppose  that  this  primitive  people  in- 
vented all  this  ?  And  if  they  did,  how  comes  it  that 
their  invention  agreed  so  exactly  with  the  traditions  of 
all  the  I'est  of  mankind  ;  and  with  the  revelations  of  sci- 
ence as  to  the  relations  between  the  trap  rocks  and  the 
gravel,  as  to  time  at  least  ? 

We  turn  now  to  the  legends  of  a  different  race,  in  a 
different  stage  of  cultivation — the  barbarian  Indians  of 
California  and  Nevada.  It  is  a  curious  and  wonderful 
story  : 

"  The  natives  in  the  vicinity  of  Lake  Tahoe  ascribe 
its  origin  to  a  great  natural  convulsion.  There  was  a 
time,  they  say,  when  their  tribe  possessed  the  whole  earth, 
and  were  strong,  numerous,  and  rich  ;  but  a  day  came  in 
which  a  people  rose  up  stronger  than  they,  and  defeated 
and  enslaved  them.  Afterward  the  Great  Spirit  sent  an 
immense  wave  across  the  continent  from  the  sea,  and  this 
wave  ingulfed  both  the  oppressors  and  the  oppressed,  all 
but  a  very  small  remnant.  Then  the  task-masters  made 
the  remaining  people  raise  up  a  great  temple,  so  that 


1G8  THE  LEGEXDS. 

tliey,  of  the  ruling  caste,  should  have  a  refuge  in  case  of 
another  flood,  and  on  the  top  of  this  temple  the  masters 
worshiped  a  column  of  perpetual  fire." 

It  would  be  natural  to  suppose  that  this  was  the  great 
deluge  to  which  all  the  legends  of  mankind  refer,  and 
which  I  have  supposed,  elsewhere,  to  refer  to  the  destruc- 
tion of  "  Atlantis";  but  it  must  be  remembered  that  both 
east  and  west  of  the  Atlantic  the  traditions  of  mankind 
refer  to  several  deluges — to  a  series  of  catastrophes — oc- 
curring at  times  far  apart.  It  may  be  that  the  legend  of 
the  Tower  of  Babel  refers  to  an  event  far  anterior  in 
time  even  to  the  deluge  of  Noah  or  Deucalion  ;  or  it  may 
be,  as  often  happens,  that  the  chronology  of  this  legend 
has  been  inverted. 

The  Tahoe  legend  continues  : 

"Half  a  moon  had  not  elapsed,  however,  before  the 
earth  was  again  troubled,  this  time  with  strong  convul- 
sions and  thundorings,  upon  which  the  masters  took  ref- 
uge in  their  great  tower,  closing  the  people  out.  The 
poor  slaves  fled  to  the  Humboldt  River,  and,  getting  into 
canoes,  paddled  for  Me  from  the  mcfvl  sight  behind  them  ; 
for  the  land  was  tossing  like  a  troubled  sea,  coid  casting 
u})  Jive,  smo7t-e,  and  ashes.  The  flames  tcent  up  to  the 
very  heavens,  and  melted  many  stars,  so   that   they 

EAIXED  DOWN  IX  MOLTEN  METAL  UPON  THE  EAHTH,  form- 
ing the  ore  "  [gold  ?]  "  that  white  men  seek.  The  Sierra 
was  mounded  up  from  the  bosom  of  the  earth  ;  while  the 
place  where  the  great  fort  stood  sank,  leaving  only  the 
dome  on  the  top  exposed  above  the  waters  of  Lake  Ta- 
hoe. The  inmates  of  the  temple-tower  clung  to  this 
dome  to  save  themselves  from  drowning  ;  but  the  Great 
Spirit  walked  upon  the  waters  in  his  wrath,  and  took  the 
oppressors  one  by  one,  like  pebbles,  and  threw  them  far 
into  the  recesses  of  a  great  cavern  on  the  cast  side  of 
the  lake,  called  to  this  day  the  Spirit  Lodge,  whore  the 
waters  shut  them  in.  There  must  they  remain  till  the 
last  great  volcanic  burning,  which   is   to   overturn    the 


OTHER  LEGENDS   OF  THE  CONFLAGRATION.     169 

wliole  earth,  is  to  again  set  them  free.  In  the  depths  of 
their  cavern-prison  they  may  still  be  heard,  wailing  and 
moaning,  when  the  snows  melt  and  the  waters  swell  in 
the  lake."  * 

Here  we  have  the  usual  mingling  of  fact  and  myth. 
The  legend  describes  accurately,  no  doubt,  the  awful  ap- 
pearance of  the  tossing  eai'th  and  the  falling  fire  and 
debris  /  the  people  flying  to  rivers  and  taking  shelter  in 
the  caves,  and  some  of  them  closed  up  in  the  caves  for  ever. 

The  legend,  as  is  usual,  accommodates  itself  to  the 
geography  and  topography  of  the  country  in  which  the 
narrators  live. 

In  the  Aztec  creation-myths,  as  jjreserved  by  the  Fray 
Andres  de  Olmos,  and  taken  down  by  him  from  the  lips 
of  those  who  narrated  the  Aztec  traditions  to  him,  we 
have  an  account  of  the  destruction  of  mankind  by  the 
sun,  which  reads  as  follows  : 

"  The  sun  had  I'isen  indeed,  and  with  the  glory  of  the 
cruel  fire  about  him,  that  not  even  the  eyes  of  the  gods 
could  endure  ;  but  he  moved  not.  There  he  lay  on  the 
horizon  ;  and  when  the  deities  sent  Tlotli,  their  messen- 
ger, to  him,  with  orders  that  he  should  go  on  upon  his 
way,  his  ominous  answer  was  that  he  would  never  leave 
tliat  place  till  he  had  destroyed  and  put  an  end  to  tJiem 
all.  Then  a  great  fear  fell  upon  some,  while  others  were 
moved  only  to  anger  ;  and  among  the  others  was  one 
Citli,  who  immediately  strung  his  bow  and  advanced 
against  the  glittering  enemy.  By  quickly  lowering  his 
head  the  sun  avoided  the  first  arrow  shot  at  him  ;  but  the 
second  and  third  had  attained  his  body  in  quick  succes- 
sion, when,  filled  with  fury,  he  seized  the  last  and  launched 
it  back  upon  his  assailant.  And  the  brave  Citli  laid  shaft 
to  string  never  more,  for  the  arrow  of  the  sun  pierced  his 
forehead.  Then  all  was  dismay  in  the  assembly  of  the 
gods,  and  despair  filled  their  hearts,  for  they  saw  that 

*  Bancroft's  "  Native  Races,"  vol.  iii,  p.  89. 


170  THE  LEGENDS, 

they  could  not  prevail  against  the  shining  one  ;  and  they 
agreed  to  die,  and  to  cut  themselves  ojjen  through  the 
breast.  Xololt  was  appointed  minister,  and  he  killed  his 
companions  one  by  one,  and  last  of  all  he  slew  himself 
also.  .  .  .  Immediately  after  the  death  of  the  gods,  the 
sun  began  his  motion  in  the  heavens  ;  and  a  man  called 
Tecuzistecatl,  or  Tezcociztecatl,  who,  when  Nanahuatzin 
leaped  into  the  fire,  had  retired  into  a  cave,  now  emerged 
from  his  concealment  as  the  moon.  Others  say  that  in- 
stead of  going  into  a  cave,  this  Tecuzistecatl  had  leaped 
into  the  fire  after  Nanahuatzin,  but  that  the  heat  of  the 
fire  being  somewhat  abated  he  had  come  out  less  brilliant 
than  the  sun.  Still  another  variation  is  that  the  sun  and 
moon  came  out  equally  bright,  but  this  not  seeming  good 
to  the  gods,  one  of  them  took  a  rabbit  by  the  heels  and 
slung  it  into  the  face  of  the  moon,  dimming  its  luster 
with  a  blotch  whose  mark  may  be  seen  to  this  day."  * 

Here  we  have  the  same  Titanic  battle  between  the 
gods,  the  godlike  men  of  old — "the  old  ones" — and  the 
Comet,  which  appears  in  the  Xorse  legends,  when  Odin, 
Thor,  Frey,  Tyr,  and  Heimdal  boldly  march  out  to  en- 
counter the  Comet  and  fall  dead,  like  Citii,  before  the 
weapons  or  the  poisonous  breath  of  the  monster.  In  the 
same  way  we  see  in  Hesiod  the  great  Jove,  rising  high  on 
Olympus  and  smiting  Typhaon  with  his  lightnings.  And 
we  shall  see  this  idea  of  a  conflict  between  the  gods  and 
the  great  demon  occurring  all  through  the  legends.  And 
it  may  be  that  the  three  arrows  of  this  American  story 
represent  the  three  comets  spoken  of  in  Hesiod,  and  the 
Fenris-wolf,  Midgard-serpent,  and  Surt  or  Garni  of  the 
Goths  :  the  first  arrow  did  not  strike  the  sun  ;  the  second 
and  the  thii-d  "  attained  its  body,"  and  then  the  enraged 
sun  launched  the  last  arroAv  back  at  Citli,  at  the  earth  ; 
and  thereupon  despair  filled  the  people,  and  they  prepared 
to  die. 

*  Bancroft's  "  Native  Races,"  toI.  iii,  p.  62. 


OTHER  LEGENDS   OF  THE   COyFLAGRATIOX.      I7I 

The  Avcsta,  the  sacred  book  of  the  ancient  Persians, 
written  in  the  Zend  dialect,  tells  the  same  story.  I  have 
already  given  one  version  of  it  : 

Ahura  Mazda  is  the  good  god,  the  kind  creator  of  life 
and  growth  ;  he  sent  the  sun,  the  fertilizing  rain.  He 
created  for  the  ancestors  of  the  Persians  a  beautiful  land, 
a  paradise,  a  warna  and  fertile  country.  But  Ahriman, 
the  genius  of  evil,  created  Azhidahaka,  "  the  biting  snake 
of  icinter.''''  "lie  had  triple  jaws,  three  heads,  six  eyes, 
the  strength  of  a  thousand  beings."  He  brings  ruin  and 
winter  on  the  fair  land.  Then  comes  a  mighty  hero, 
Thraetaona,  who  kills  the  snake  and  rescues  the  land.* 

In  the  Persian  legends  we  have  Feridun,  the  hero  of 
the  Shah-Nameh.  There  is  a  serpent-king  called  Zohak, 
who  has  committed  dreadful  crimes,  assisted  by  a  demon 
called  Iblis,  As  his  reward,  Iblis  asked  pei'mission  to 
kiss  the  king's  shoulder,  which  was  granted.  Then  from 
the  shoulder  sprang  two  di'eadf  ul  serpents,  Iblis  told  him 
that  these  must  be  fed  every  day  with  the  brains  of  two 
children.  So  the  human  race  was  gradually  being  exter- 
minated. Then  Feridun,  beautiful  and  strong,  rose  up 
and  killed  the  serpent-king  Zohak,  and  delivered  his 
country.  Zohak  is  the  same  as  Azhidahaka  in  the  Avesta 
— "the  biting  snake  of  winter."  f  He  is  Python  ;  he  is 
Typhaon  ;  he  is  the  Fenris-wolf  ;  he  is  the  Midgard- 
serpent. 

The  Persian  fire-worship  is  based  on  the  primeval 
recognition  of  the  value  of  light  and  fire,  growing  out  of 
this  Age  of  Darkness  and  winter. 

In  the  legends  of  the  Hindoos  we  read  of  the  fight 
between  Rama,  the  sun-god  {^lia  was  the  Egyptian  god  of 
the  sun),  and  Ravana,  a  giant  who,  accompanied  by  the 

*  Poor,  "  Sanskrit  Literature,"  p.  144,  f  Ibid.,  p.  1 58. 


172  THE  LEGJENBS. 

Rakshasas,  or  demons,  made  terrible  times  in  tlie  ancient 
land  where  the  ancestors  of  the  Hindoos  dwelt  at  that 
period.  He  carries  away  the  wife  of  Rama,  Sita  ;  her 
name  signifies  "  a  furrow,"  and  seems  to  refer  to  agri- 
culture, and  an  agricultural  race  inhabiting  the  furrowed 
earth.  He  bears  her  struggling  through  the  air.  Rama 
and  his  allies  pursue  him.  The  monkey-god,  Hanuman, 
helps  Rama  ;  a  bridge  of  stone,  sixty  miles  long,  is  built 
across  the  deep  ocean  to  the  Island  of  Lanka,  where  the 
great  battle  is  fought :  "  The  stones  which  crop  out  through 
Southern  India  are  said  to  have  been  dropped  by  the 
monJcey  builders!''''  The  army  crosses  on  the  bridge,  as 
the  forces  of  Muspelheim,  in  the  Norse  legends,  marched 
over  the  bridge  "  Bifrost." 

The  battle  is  a  terrible  one.  Ravana  has  ten  heads, 
and  as  fast  as  Rama  cuts  off  one  another  grows  in  its 
place.  Finally,  Rama,  like  Apollo,  fires  the  terrible  arrow 
of  Brahma,  the  creator,  and  the  monster  falls  dead. 

"  Gods  and  demons  are  watching  the  contest  from  the 
sky,  and  flowers  fall  down  in  showers  on  the  victorious 
hero." 

The  body  of  Ravana  is  consumed  by  fire.  Sita,  the 
furrowed  earth,  goes  through  the  ordeal  of  fire,  and  comes 
out  of  it  pui'ified  and  redeemed  from  all  taint  of  the  mon- 
ster Ravana  ;  and  Rama,  the  sun,  and  Sita,  the  earth,  are 
separated  for  fourteen  years  ;  Sita  is  hid  in  the  dark 
jungle,  and  thpn  they  are  married  again,  and  live  happily 
together  ever  after. 

Here  we  have  the  battle  in  the  air  between  the  sun 
and  the  demon  :  the  earth  is  taken  possession  of  by  the 
demon ;  the  demon  is  finally  consumed  by  fire,  and 
perishes  ;  the  earth  goes  through  an  ordeal  of  fire,  a  con- 
flagration ;  and  for  fourteen  years  the  earth  and  sun  do 
not  see  each  other  ;  the  earth  is  hid  in  a  dark  jungle  ;  but 


OTHER  LEGENDS   OF  THE  CONFLAGRATION.     17 3 

eventually  the  sun  returns,   and  the  loving  couple  are 
again  married,  and  live  hajipily  for  ever  after. 

The  Phoibos  Apollo  of  the  Greek  legends  was,  Byron 
tells  us— 

"  The  lord  of  the  unerring  how, 
The  god  of  life  and  poetry  and  light. 
The  sun  in  human  limbs  arrayed,  and  brow 
All  radiant  from  his  triumph  in  the  fight. 
The  shaft  had  just  been  shot,  the  arrow  bright 
AYith  an  immortal's  vengeance  ;  in  his  eye 
And  nostril  beautiful  disdain,  and  might, 
And  majesty  ilash  their  full  lightnings  by, 
Developing  in  that  one  glance  the  deity." 

This  fight,  so  magnificently  described,  was  the  sun-god's 
battle  with  Python,  the  destroyer,  the  serpent,  the  dragon, 
the  Comet.  AVhat  was  Python  doing  ?  He  was  "  stealing 
the  springs  and  fountains."  That  is  to  say,  the  great 
heat  was  drying  up  the  water-courses  of  the  earth. 

"  The  arrow  bi'ight  with  an  immortal's  vengeance," 
M^as  the  shaft  with  which  Apollo  broke  the  fiend  to  j^ieces 
and  tumbled  him  down  to  the  earth,  and  saved  the  springs 
and  the  clouds  and  the  perishing  ocean. 

"When  we  turn  to  Amei'ica,  the  legends  tell  us  of  the 
same  great  battle  between  good  and  evil,  between  light 
and  darkness. 

Manibozho,  or  the  Great  Hare  Xana,  is,  in  the  Algon- 
quin legends,  the  White  One,  the  light,  the  sun.  "His 
foe  was  the  glittering  prince  of  serpents  "—the  Comet.* 

Among  the  Iroquois,  according  to  the  Jesuit  mission- 
ary. Father  Brebeuf,  who  resided  among  the  Huron s  in 
1626,  there  was  a  legend  of  two  brothers,  loskeha  and 
Tawiscara,  which  mean,  in  the  Oneida  dialect,  the  Wliite 
One,  the  light,  the  sun,  and  the  Dark    One,  the  night. 

*  Brinton's  "Myths,"  p.  182. 


174  THE  LEGENDS. 

They  were  twins,  born  of  a  virgin  mother,  who  died  in 
giving  them  life.  Their  gi-andmother  was  the  moon  (the 
water  deity),  called  At-aeusic,  a  word  which  signifies 
"  she  bathes  herself,"  derived  from  the  word  for  tcater. 

"  The  brothers  quarreled,  and  finally  came  to  blows,  the 
former  using  the  horns  of  a  stag,  the  latter  the  wild  rose. 
He  of  the  weaker  weapon  was  very  naturally  discomfited 
and  sorely  wounded.  Fleeing  for  life,  the  blood  gushed 
from  him  at  every  step,  and  as  it  fell  turned  into  flint- 
stones.  The  victor  returned  to  his  grandmother  in  the 
far  east,  and  established  his  lodge  on  the  borders  of  the 
great  ocean,  whence  the  sun  comes.  In  time  he  became 
the  father  of  mankind,  and  sjDecial  guardian  of  the  Iro- 
quois. The  earth  was  at  first  arid  and  sterile,  but  he 
destroyed  the  gigantic  frog  which  had  swallowed  all  the 
waters,  and  guided  the  torrents  into  smooth  streams  and 
lakes.  The  woods  he  stocked  with  game  ;  and,  having 
learned  from  the  great  tortoise  who  supports  the  world 
how  to  make  fire,  taught  his  children,  the  Indians,  this 
indispensable  art.  .  .  .  Sometimes  they  spoke  of  him  as 
the  sun,  but  this  is  only  figuratively."  * 

Here  we  have  the  light  and  darkness,  the  sun  and  the 
night,  battling  with  each  other  ;  the  sun  fights  with  a 
younger  brother,  another  luminar)^,  the  comet ;  the  comet 
is  broken  up  ;  it  flies  for  life,  the  red  blood  (the  red  clay) 
streaming  from  it,  and  flint-stones  appearing  on  the  earth 
wherever  the  blood  (the  clay)  falls.  The  victorious  sun 
re-establishes  himself  in  the  east.  And  then  the  myth  of 
the  sun  merges  into  the  legends  concerning  a  great 
people,  who  were  the  fathers  of  mankind  who  dwelt  "in 
the  east,"  on  the  borders  of  the  great  eastern  ocean,  the 
Atlantic.  "  The  earth  was  at  first  arid  and  sterile," 
covered  with  debris  and  stones  ;  but  the  returning  sun, 
the  White  One,  destroys  the  gigantic  frog,  emblem  of 
cold  and  water,  the  great  snows  and  ice-deposits  ;  this 

*  Brinton's  "Myths  of  the  New  World,"  p.  184. 


OTHER  LEGENDS   OF  THE  COXFLAGRATION.     175 

frog  had  "  swallowed  all  the  waters,"  that  is  to  say,  the 
falling  rains  had  been  congealed  in  these  great  snow-banks 
and  glaciers  ;  the  sun  melts  them,  and  kills  the  frog  ; 
the  waters  pour  forth  in  deluging  floods  ;  Manibozho 
"  guides  the  torrents  into  smooth  streams  and  lakes "  ; 
the  woods  return,  and  become  once  more  full  of  animal 
life.  Then  the  myth  again  mixes  up  the  sun  and  the 
sun-land  in  the  east.  From  this  sun-land,  represented  as 
"  a  tortoise,"  always  the  emblem  of  an  island,  the  Iro- 
quois derive  the  knowledge  of  "  how  to  make  fire." 

This  coming  of  the  monster,  his  attack  upon  and  con- 
quest of  the  sun,  his  apparent  swallowing  of  that  orb,  are 
all  found  represented  on  both  sides  of  the  Atlantic,  on  the 
walls  of  temples  and  in  great  earth-mounds,  in  the  image 
of  a  gigantic  serpent  holding  a  globe  in  its  mouth. 

This  long-trailing  object  in  the  skies  was  probably 
the  origin  of  that  primeval  serpent-worship  found  all 
over  the  world.  And  hence  the  association  of  the  ser- 
pent in  so  many  religions  with  the  evil-one.  In  itself, 
the  serpent  should  no  more  represent  moral  wrong  than 
the  lizard,  the  crocodile,  or  the  frog  ;  but  the  hereditary 
abhorrence  with  which  he  is  regarded  by  mankind  ex- 
tends to  no  other  created  thing.  He  is  the  image  of  the 
great  destroyer,  the  wronger,  the  enemy. 

Let  us  turn  to  another  legend. 

An  ancient  authority  *  gives  the  following  legend  of 
the  Tupi  Indians  of  Brazil  : 

"  Monau,  without  beginning  or  end,  author  of  all  that 
is,  seeing  the  ingratitude  of  men,  and  their  contempt  for 
him  who  had  made  them  thus  joyous,  withdrew  from 
them,  and  sent  upon  them  tata,  the  divine  fire,  which 
burned  all  that  was  on  the  surface  of  the  earth.     He 

*  "Une  Fete  Brcsiliciine  celebre  h,  Rouen  en  1550,"  par  M.  Ferdi- 
nand Denis,  p.  82. 


176  THE  LEGEXD8. 

swept  about  the  fire  in  such  a  way  that  in  2ylcices  he  raised 
mountains,  and  in  others  dug  valleys.  Of  all  men  one 
alone,  Irin  INIage,  was  saved,  whom  Monau  carried  into 
the  heaven.  He,  seeing  all  things  destroyed,  spoke  thus 
to  Monau  :  'Wilt  thou  also  destroy  the  heavens  and  their 
garniture  ?  Alas  !  henceforth  where  will  be  our  home  ? 
Why  should  I  live,  since  there  is  none  other  of  my  kind?' 
Then  Monau  was  so  filled  with  pity  that  he  poured  a 
deluging  rain  on  the  earth,  which  quenched  the  fire,  and 
flowed  on  all  sides,  forming  the  ocean,  which  we  call  the 
parana,  the  great  waters."  * 

The  prayer  of  Irin  Mage,  when  he  calls  on  God  to 
save  the  garniture  of  the  heavens,  reminds  one  vividly  of 
the  prayer  of  the  Earth  in  Ovid. 

It  might  be  inferred  that  heaven  meant  in  the  Tupi 
legend  the  heavenly  land,  not  the  skies  ;  this  is  rendered 
the  more  probable  because  we  find  Irin  asking  where 
should  he  dwell  if  heaven  is  destroyed.  This  could 
scarcely  allude  to  a  spu'itual  heaven. 

And  here  I  would  note  a  singular  coincidence  :  The 
fire  that  fell  from  heaven  was  the  divine  tata,  In  Egypt 
the  name  of  deity  was  "ta-ta,"  or  "pta-pta,"  which  sig- 
nified father.  This  became  in  the  Hebrew  "  ya-ya," 
from  which  we  derive  the  root  of  Jah,  Jehovah.  And 
this  word  is  found  in  many  languages  in  Europe  and 
America,  and  even  in  our  own,  as,  "  da-da,"  "  daddy,"  fa- 
ther.   The  Tupi  "  tata  "  was  fire  from  the  supreme  father. 

Who  can  doubt  the  oneness  of  the  human  race,  when 
millions  of  threads  of  tradition  and  language  thus  cross 
each  other  through  it  in  all  directions,  like  the  web  of  a 
mighty  fabric  ? 

We  cross  from  one  continent  to  another,  from  the 
torrid  part  of  South  America  to  the  frozen  regions  of 
North  America,  and  the  same  legend  meets  us. 

*  Lrinton's  "  Myths  of  the  Xcw  World,"  p.  227. 


OTHER  LEGEXDS   OF  THE   COXFLAGRATION.      177 

The  Taciillies  of  British  Columbia  believe  that  the 
earth  was  formed  by  a  musk-rat,  who,  diving  into  the 
universal  sea,  brought  up  the  land  in  his  mouth  and  spit 
it  out,  until  he  had  formed  "  quite  an  island,  and,  by  de- 
grees, the  whole  earth  "  : 

"  In  some  unexplained  way,  this  earth  became  after- 
ward peopled  in  every  part,  and  it  remained,  ?«^^«7  a  fierce 
fire,  ofi  several  days'  duration,  swept  over  it,  destroyinc/ 
all  lifie,  with  two  exceptions  ;  one  man  and  one  woman 
hid  themselves  in  a  deep  cave  in  the  heart  of  a  mountain, 
and  from  these  two  has  the  world  since  been  rej)eopled."  * 

Brief  as  is  this  narrative,  it  preserves  the  natural  se- 
quence of  events  :  First,  the  world  is  made  ;  then  it  be- 
comes peopled  in  every  part  ;  then  a  fierce  fire  sweeps 
over  it  for  several  days,  consuming  all  life,  except  two 
persons,  who  save  themselves  by  hiding  in  a  deep  cave  ;^ 
and  from  these  the  world  is  repeoj^led.  How  wonderfully 
does  all  this  resemble  the  Scandinavian  story  ! 

It  has  oftentimes  been  urged,  by  the  skeptical,  when 
legends  of  Noah's  flood  were  found  among  rude  races, 
that  they  had  been  derived  from  Christian  missionaries. 
But  these  myths  can  not  be  accounted  for  in  this  way  ; 
for  the  missionaries  did  not  teach  that  the  world  was 
once  destroyed  by  fii'e,  and  that  a  remnant  of  mankind 
escaped  by  taking  refuge  in  a  cave  ;  although,  as  we  shall 
see,  such  a  legend  really  appears  in  several  places  hidden 
in  the  leaves  of  the  Bible  itself. 

We  leave  the  remote  north  and  pass  down  the  Pacific 
coast  until  we  encounter  the  Ute  Indians  of  California 
and  Utah.     This  is  their  legend  : 

"  The  Ute  philosopher  declares  the  sun  to  be  a  living 
personage,  and  explains  his  passage  across  the  heavens 
along  an  appointed  way  by  giving  an  account  of  a  fierce 

*  Bancroft's  "  Native  Races,"  vol.  iii,  p.  98 


178  THE  LEGENDS. 

personal  conflict  between  Ta-vi,  the   sun-god,  and  Ta- 
wats,  one  of  the  supreme  gods  of  his  mythology. 

"  In  that  long  ago,  the  time  to  which  all  mythology 
refers,  the  sun  roamed  the  earth  at  will.  When  he  came 
too  near  v:ith  his  fierce  heat  the  people  were  scorched,  and 
when  he  hid  cnoay  in  his  cave  for  a  long  time,  too  idle  to 
come  forth,  the  night  icas  long  and  the  earth  cold.  Once 
upon  a  time.Ta-wats,  the  hare-god,  was  sitting  with  his 
family  by  the  camp-fire  in  the  solemn  woods,  anxiously 
waiting  for  the  return  of  Ta-vi,  the  wayward  sun-god. 
AVearied  with  long  watching,  the  hare-god  fell  asleep, 
and  the  sun-god  came  so  near  that  he  scorched  the  naked 
shoulder  of  Ta-wats.  Foi-eseeing  the  vengeance  which 
would  be  thus  provoked,  he  fled  back  to  his  cave  beneath 
the  earth.  Ta-wats  awoke  in  great  anger,  and  speedily 
determined  to  go  and  fight  the  sun-god.  After  a  long 
journey  of  many  adventures  the  hare-god  came  to  the 
brink  of  the  earth,  and  there  watched  long  and  patiently, 
"•till  at  last  the  sun-god  coming  out  he  shot  an  arrow  at 
his  face,  but  the  fierce  heat  consumed  the  arrow  ere  it 
had  finished  its  intended  coui'se  ;  then  another  arrow  was 
sj^ed,  but  that  also  was  consumed  ;  and  another,  and  still 
another,  till  onl}^  one  remained  in  his  quiver,  but  this  was 
the  magical  arrow  that  had  never  failed  its  mark.  Ta- 
wats,  holding  it  in  his  hand,  lifted  the  barb  to  his  eye 
and  baptized  it  in  a  divine  tear  ;  then  the  arrow  was  sped 
and  struck  the  sun-god  full  in  the  face,  and  the  sun  was 
shivered  into  a  thousand  fragments,  tchich  fell  to  the 
earth,  causing  a  genercd  conflagration.  Then  Ta-wats, 
the  hare-god,  fled  before  the  destruction  he  had  wrought, 
and  as  he  fled  the  burning  earth  consumed  his  feet,  con- 
sumed his  legs,  consumed  his  body,  consumed  his  hands 
and  his  arras — all  were  consumed  but  the  head  alone, 
which  bowled  across  valleys  and  over  mountains,  fleeing 
desti'uction  from  the  burning  earth,  until  at  last,  swollen 
Avith  heat,  the  eyes  of  the  god  burst  and  the  tears  gushed 
forth  in  a  flood  tohich  spread  over  the  earth  and  extin- 
guished the  fire.  The  sun-god  was  now  conquered,  and 
he  apjieared  before  a  council  of  the  gods  to  await  sen- 
tence. In  that  long  council  Avere  established  the  days 
and  the  nights,  the  seasons  and  the  years,  with  the  length 


OTHER  LEGENDS   OF  THE  CONFLAGRATION.     179 

thereof,  and  the  sun  was  condemned  to  travel  across  the 
firmament  by  the  same  trail  day  after  day  till  the  end  of 
time."  * 

Here  we  have  the  succession  of  arrows,  or  comets, 
found  in  the  legend  of  the  Aztecs,  and  here  as  before  it 
is  the  last  arrow  that  destroys  the  sun.  And  here,  again, 
we  have  the  conflagration,  the  fragments  of  something 
falling  on  the  earth,  the  long  absence  of  the  sun,  the 
great  rains  and  the  cold. 

Let  us  shift  the  scene  again. 

In  Peru — that  ancient  land  of  mysterious  civilization, 
that  brother  of  Egypt  and  Babylon,  looking  out  through 
the  twilight  of  time  upon  the  silent  waters  of  the  Pacific, 
waiting  in  its  isolation  for  the  world  once  more  to  come 
to  it — in  this  strange  land  we  find  the  following  legend  : 

"  Ere  sun  and  moon  was  made,  Viracocha,  the  White 
One,  rose  from  the  bosom  of  Lake  Titicaca,  and  presided 
over  the  erection  of  those  wondrous  cities  whose  ruins 
still  dot  its  islands  and  western  shores,  and  whose  history 
is  totally  lost  in  the  night  of  time."  f 

He  constructed  the  sun  and  moon  and  created  the 
inhabitants  of  the  earth.  These  latter  attacked  him  with 
murderous  intent  (the  comet  assailed  the  sun  ?)  ;  but 
"scorning  such  unequal  contest  he  manifested  his  power 
by  hurling  the  lightning  on  the  hill-sides  and  consuming 
the  forests,'''  whereupon  the  creatures  he  had  created 
humbled  themselves  before  him.  One  of  Viracocha's 
names  was  At-achuchu.  He  civilized  the  Peruvians, 
taught  them  arts  and  agriculture  and  religion ;  they 
called  him  "The  teacher  of  all  things."  He  came  from, 
the  east  and  disappeared  in  the  Western  Ocean.  Four 
civilizers    followed   him   who    emerged  from    the    cave 

*  "Popular  Science  Monthly,"  October,  18*79,  p.  799. 
f  Briaton's  "  Myths  of  the  New  World,"  p.  192. 


180  THE  LEGEXDS. 

Paearin  Tami:)u,  the  House  of  Birth.*  These  four  broth- 
ers were  also  called  Yiracochas,  ichite  men. 

Here  we  have  the  White  One  coming  from  the  cast, 
hurling  his  lightning  upon  the  earth  and  causing  a  con- 
flagration ;  and  afterward  civilized  men  emerged  from  a 
cave.  They  were  while  men  ;  and  it  is  to  these  cave-horn 
men  that  Peru  owed  its  first  civilization. 

Here  is  another  and  a  more  amplified  version  of  the 
Peruvian  legend  : 

The  Peruvians  believed  in  a  god  called  At-achuchu, 
already  referred  to,  the  creator  of  heaven  and  earth,  and 
the  maker  of  all  things.  From  him  came  the  first  man, 
Guamansm-i. 

This  first  mortal  is  mixed  up  with  events  that  seem  to 
refer  to  the  Age  of  Fire. 

He  descended  to  the  earth,  and  "  there  seduced  the  sis- 
ter of  certain  Guachemines,  rayless  ones,  or  Darklings  "  ; 
that  is  to  say,  certain  Powers  of  Darkness,  "  who  then 
possessed  it.  For  this  crime  they  destroyed  him."  That 
is  to  say,  the  Powers  of  Darkness  destroyed  the  light. 
But  not  for  ever. 

"  Their  sister  proved  pregnant,  and  died  in  her  labor, 
giving  birth  to  two  eggs,"  the  sun  and  moon.  "  From 
these  emerged  the  two  brothers,  Ajiocatequil  and  Pig- 
uerao." 

Then  followed  the  same  great  battle,  to  which  we  have 
so  many  references  in  the  legends,  and  which  always  ends, 
as  in  the  case  of  Cain  and  Abel,  in  one  brother  slaughter- 
ing the  other.  In  this  case,  Apocatequil  "was  the  more 
powerful.  By  touching  the  corpse  of  his  mother  (the 
sun  ?)  be  brought  her  to  life,  he  drove  off  and  slew  the 
Guachemines  (the  Powers  of  Darkness),  and,  directed  by 

*  Brinton's  "  Myths  of  the  New  World,'  p.  193. 


OTHER  LEGENDS   OF  THE  COXFLAGRATIOy.      181 

At-ac/iuc/iu,  released  the  race  of  Indians  from  the  soil  by- 
turning  it  up  with  a  golden  spade,"' 

That  is  to  say,  he  dug  them  out  from  the  cave  in 
which  they  were  buried. 

"  For  this  reason  they  adored  him  as  their  maker.  He 
it  was,  they  thought,  who  produced  the  thunder  and  the 
lightning  l)>/  hurlitig  stones  toit/i  Ms  sling ,'  and  the  thun- 
dei'-bolts  that  fall,  said  they,  are  his  children.  Few  vil- 
lages were  willing  to  be  without  one  or  more  of  these. 
They  were  in  appearance  snialJ,  round,  smooth  stones,  but 
had  the  admirable  properties  of  securing  fertility  to  the 
fields,  protecting  from  lightning,"  etc.* 

I  shift  the  scene  again  ;  or,  rather,  group  together  the 
legends  of  three  different  localities.     I  quote  : 

"  The  Takahlis  "  (the  Tacullies  already  referred  to)  "  of 
the  North  Pacific  coast,  the  Yurucares  of  the  Bolivian 
Cordilleras,  and  the  Mbocobi  of  Paraguay,  each  and  all 
attribute  the  destruction  of  the  world  to  a  general  confla- 
gration,yf\i\Qh  swept  over  the  earth,  consuming  everything 
living  except  «  feio  loho  took  refuge  in  a  dee})  cave.''''  \ 

The  Botocudos  of  Brazil  believed  that  the  world  was 
once  destroyed  by  the  moon  falling  upon  it. 
Let  us  shift  the  scene  again  northward  : 
There  was  once,  according  to  the  Ojibway  legends,  a 
boy  ;  the  sun  burned  and  spoiled  his  bird-skin  coat ;  and 
he  swore  that  he  would  have  vengeance.  He  persuaded 
his  sister  to  make  him  a  noose  of  her  own  hair.  He  fixed 
it  just  where  the  sun  would  strike  the  land  as  it  rose 
above  the  earth's  disk  ;  and,  sure  enough,  he  caught  the 
sun,  and  held  it  fast,  so  that  it  did  not  rise. 

"  The  animals  who  ruled  the  earth  were  immediately 
put  into  great  commotion.  They  had  no  light.  They 
called  a  council  to  debate  upon  the  matter,  and  to  appoint 

*  Brinton's  "  .Myths  of  the  Xcw  World,"  p.  165.  f  Ibid.,  p.  217. 


182  THE  LEGEXDS. 

some  one  to  go  and  cut  the  cord,  for  this  was  a  very  haz- 
ardous enterprise,  as  the  rays  of  the  sun  would  burn  up 
icJioei'cr  came  so  near.  At  last  the  dormouse  undertook 
it,  for  at  this  time  the  dormouse  was  the  largest  animal  in 
the  world  "  (the  mastodon  ?) ;  "  when  it  stood  up  it  looked 
like  a  mountain.  When  it  got  to  the  place  where  the 
sun  was  snared,  its  back  began  to  smoke  and  hum  with 
the  intensiti/  of  the  heat,  and  the  top  of  its  carcass  was 
reduced  to  enormous  heaps  of  ashes.  It  succeeded,  how- 
ever, in  cutting  the  cord  with  its  teeth  and  freeing  the 
sun,  but  it  was  reduced  to  very  smcdl  size,  and  has  re- 
mained so  ever  since." 

This  seems  to  be  a  reminiscence  of  the  destruction  of 
the  great  mammalia.*  The  "  enormous  heaps  of  ashes  " 
may  represent  the  vast  deposits  of  clay-dust. 

Among  the  "NYyandots  a  story  was  told,  in  the  seven- 
teenth century,  of  a  boy  whose  father  was  killed  and  eaten 
by  a  bear,  and  his  mother  by  the  Great  Hare.  He  was 
small,  but  of  prodigious  strength.  He  climbed  a  tree, 
like  Jack  of  the  Bean-Stalk,  until  he  reached  heaven. 

"  He  set  his  snares  for  game,  but  when  he  got  up  at 
night  to  look  at  them  he  found  everything  on  fire.  His 
sister  told  him  he  had  caught  the  sun  unawares,  and  when 
the  boy,  Chakabech,  went  to  see,  so  it  was.  But  he  dared 
not  go  near  enough  to  let  him  out.  But  by  chance  he 
found  a  little  mouse,  and  blew  upon  her  until  she  grew  so 
big  "  (again  the  mastodon)  "  that  she  could  set  the  sun 
free,  and  he  went  on  his  way.  But  while  he  was  held  in 
the  snare,  day  failed  dov:n  here  on  earth.'''' 

It  was  the  age  of  darkness. f 

The  Dog-Rib  Indians,  far  in  the  northwest  of  America, 
near  the  Esquimaux,  have  a  similar  story  :  Chakabech  be- 
comes Chapewee.    He  too  climbs  a  tree,  but  it  is  in  pursuit 

*  Tylor's  "  Early  History  of  Mankind,"  p.  3-lS. 

f  Le  Jeune  (1637),  in  "Relations  dcs  Jesuits  dans  la  Xouvelle- 
France,"  vol.  i,  p.  54. 


OTHER  LEGEXDS   OF  THE   COXFLAGRATION.      183 

of  a  squirrel,  until  he  reaches  heaven.  He  set  a  snare 
made  of  his  sister's  hair  and  caught  the  sun.  "  The  ski/ 
teas  instantly/  darkened.  Chapewee's  family  said  to  him, 
'  You  must  have  done  something  wrong  when  you  were 
aloft, /or  tee  no  longer  enjoy  the  light  of  day.''  'I  have,' 
replied  he,  'but  it  was  unintentionally.'  Chapewee  sent  a 
number  of  animals  to  cut  the  snare,  but  the  intense  heat 
reduced  them  cdl  to  ashes.'''  At  last  the  ground  -  mole 
working  in  the  earth  cut  the  snare  but  lost  its  sight,  "  and 
its  nose  and  teeth  have  ever  since  been  brown  as  if 
burnt."  * 

The  natives  of  Siberia  represented  the  mastodon  as  a 
great  mole  burrowing  in  the  earth  and  casting  uj?  ridges 
of  earth — the  sight  of  the  sun  killed  him. 

These  sun-catching  legends  date  back  to  a  time  when 
the  races  of  the  earth  had  not  yet  separated.  Hence  we 
find  the  same  story,  in  almost  the  same  words,  in  Polyne- 
sia and  America. 

Maui  is  the  Polynesian  god  of  the  ancient  days.  He 
concluded,  as  did  Ta-wats,  that  the  days  were  too  short. 
He  wanted  the  sun  to  slow-up,  but  it  would  not.  So  he 
proceeded  to  catch  it  in  a  noose  like  the  Ojibway  boy  and 
the  Wyandot  youth.  The  manufacture  of  the  noose,  we 
are  told,  led  to  the  discovery  of  the  art  of  rope-making. 
He  took  his  brothers  with  him  ;  he  armed  himself,  like 
Samson,  with  a  jaw-bone,  but  instead  of  the  jaw-bone 
of  an  ass,  he,  with  much  better  taste,  selected  the  jaw- 
bone of  his  mistress.  She  may  have  been  a  lady  of  fine 
conversational  powers.  They  traveled  far,  like  Ta-wats, 
even  to  the  very  edge  of  the  place  where  the  sun  rises. 
There  he  set  his  noose.  The  sun  came  and  put  his  head 
and  fore-paws  into  it ;  then  the  brothers  pulled  the  ropes 

*  Richardson's  "  Xarrative  of  Franklin's  Second  Expedition,"  p.  291. 


184  THE  LEGENDS. 

tight  and  Maui  gave  him  a  great  whipping  with  the  jaw- 
bone ;  he  screamed  and  roared  ;  they  held  l)im  there  for 
a  long  time,  (the  Age  of  Darkness,)  and  at  last  they  let 
him  go  ;  and  weak  from  his  wounds,  (obscured  by  clouds,) 
he  crawls .  slowly  along  his  path.  Here  the  jaw  of  the 
wolf  Fenris,  which  reached  from  earth  to  heaven,  in  the 
Scandinavian  legends,  becomes  a  veritable  jaw-bone  which 
beats  and  ruins  the  sun. 

It  is  a  curious  fact  that  the  sun  in  this  Polynesian  le- 
gend is  Ma,  precisely  the  same  as  the  name  of  the  god  of 
the  sun  in  Egypt,  while  in  Hindostan  the  sun-god  is  Ra-ma. 

In  another  Polynesian  legend  we  read  of  a  character 
who  was  satisfied  with  nothing,  "even  pudding  would  not 
content  him,"  and  this  unconscionable  fellow  worried  his 
family  out  of  all  heart  with  his  new  ways  and  ideas.  He 
represents  a  progressive,  inventive  race.  He  was  build- 
ing a  great  house,  but  the  days  were  too  short  ;  so,  like 
Maui,  he  determined  to  catch  the  sun  in  nets  and  ropes  ; 
but  the  sun  went  on.  At  last  he  succeeded  ;  he  caught 
him.  The  good  man  then  had  time  to  finish  his  house, 
but  the  sun  cried  and  cried  "  until  the  island  of  Savai  was 
nearly  drowned."  * 

And  these  myths  of  the  sun  being  tied  by  a  cord  are, 
strange  to  say,  found  even  in  Europe.    The  legends  tell  us: 

"In  North  Germany  the  townsmen  of  Busum  sit  up  in 
their  church-tower  and  hold  the  sun  by  a  cable  all  day 
long  ;  taking  care  of  it  at  night,  and  letting  it  up  again 
in  the  morning.  In  '  Reynard  the  Fox,'  the  day  is  bound 
with  a  rope,  and  its  bonds  only  allow  it  to  come  slowly 
on.  The  Peruvian  Inca  said  the  sun  is  like  a  tied  beast, 
Y/ho  goes  ever  round  and  round,  in  the  same  track."  f 

That  is  to  say,  they  recognized  that  he  is  not  a  god, 
but  the  servant  of  God. 

*  Tylor's  "  Early  Mankind,"  p.  347.  f  Ibid.,  p.  352. 


OTHER  LEGENDS   OF  THE  COXFLAGRATION:      185 

Yeiily  the  bands  tliat  knit  the  races  of  the  earth  to- 
gether are  wonderful  hideed,  and  they  radiate,  as  I  shall 
try  to  show,  from  one  spot  of  the  earth's  surface,  alike  to 
Polynesia,  Europe,  and  America. 

Let  us  chano;e  the  scene  asrain  to  the  neisjhborhood  of 

o  o  o 

the  Aztecs  : 

We  are  told  of  two  youths,  the  ancestors  of  the  Miz- 
tec  chiefs,  who  separated,  each  going  his  own  way  to  con- 
quer lands  for  himself  : 

"The  braver  of  the  two,  coming  to  the  vicinity  of 
Tilantongo,  armed  with  buckler  and  bow,  was  trrnch  vexed 
and  oppressed  by  the  ardent  rays  of  the  sun,  which  he 
took  to  be  the  lord  of  that  district,  striving  to  prevent  his 
enti'ance  therein.  Then  the  young  man  sti'ung  his  bow, 
and  advanced  his  buckler  before  him,  and  drew  shafts 
fi'om  his  quiver.  He  shot  these  against  the  great  light 
even  till  the  going  down  of  the  same  ;  then  he  took  jdos- 
session  of  all  that  land,  seeing  that  he  had  grievously 
v:ounded  the  swi  and  forced  him  to  hide  behind  the 
mountains.  Upon  this  story  is  founded  the  lordship  of 
all  the  caciques  of  Mizteca,  and  upon  their  descent  from 
this  mighty  archer,  their  ancestor.  Even  to  this  day,  the 
chiefs  of  the  Miztecs  blazon  as  their  arms  a  plumed  chief 
with  bow  and  arrows  and  shield,  and  the  sun  in  front  of 
him  setting  behind  gray  clouds."  * 

Are  these  two  young  men,  one  of  whom  attacks  and 
injures  the  sun,  the  two  wolves  of  the  Gothic  legends,  the 
two  comets,  who  devoured  the  sun  and  moon  ?  And  did 
the  Miztec  barbarians,  in  their  vanity,  claim  descent  from 
these  monstrous  creatures  of  the  sky  ?  Why  not,  when 
the  historical  heroes  of  antiquity  traced  their  pedigree 
back  to  the  gods  ;  and  the  rulers  of  Peru,  Egypt,  and 
China  pretended  to  be  the  lineal  offspring  of  the  sun  ? 
And  there  are  not  wanting  those,  even  in  Europe,  who 

*  Bancroft's  "Native  Eaces,"  vol.  iii,  p.  1Z, 


186  THE  LEGENDS. 

yet  believe   that  the  blood-royal  differs  in  some  of   its 
constituents  from  the  blood  of  the  common  people  : 

"  What,  will  the  aspiring  blood  of  Lancaster 
Sink  in  the  ground  ?  " 

In  the  Aztec  legends  there  were  four  ages,  or  suns,  as 
they  were  termed.  The  first  terminated,  according  to  Ga- 
ma,  in  a  destruction  of  the  people  of  the  world  by  hunger; 
the  second  ended  in  a  destruction  by  winds  ;  in  the  third, 
the  human  race  icas  sicept  aica>j  hy  fire,  and  the  fourth 
destruction  was  by  water.  And  in  the  Hindoo  legends  we 
find  the  same  series  of  great  cycles,  or  ages  :  one  of  the 
Shastas  teaches  that  the  human  race  has  been  destroyed 
four  times — first  by  water,  secondly  by  winds,  thirdly  the 
earth  swallowed  them,  and  lastly  fire  consumed  them* 
I  come  now  to  a  most  extraordinary  record  : 
In  the  prayer  of  the  Aztecs  to  the  great  god  Tezcat- 
lipoca,  "  the  supreme,  invisible  god,"  a  prayer  offered  iip 
in  time  of  pestilence,  we  have  the  most  remarkable  refer- 
ences to  the  destruction  of  the  people  by  stones  and  fire. 
It  would  almost  seem  as  if  this  great  prayer,  noble  and 
sublime  in  its  language,  was  first  poured  out  in  the  very 
midst  of  the  Age  of  Fire,  wrung  from  the  human  heart 
by  the  most  appalling  calamity  that  ever  overtook  the 
race  ;  and  that  it  was  transmitted  from  age  to  age,  as 
the  hymns  of  the  Yedas  and  the  prayers  of  the  Hebrews 
have  been  preserved,  for  thousands  of  years,  down  to  our 
own  times,  when  it  was  carefully  transcribed  by  a  mis- 
sionary priest.     It  is  as  follows  : 

"  O  mighty  Lord,  under  whose  wing  we  find  defense 
and  shelter,  thou  art  invisible  and  impali^able,  even  as 
night  and  the  air.  How  can  I,  that  am  so  mean  and 
worthless,   dare  to  appear  before   thy  majesty  ?      Stut- 

*  Brinton's  "  Myths  cf  the  Xcw  World,"  p.  232. 


OTHER   LEGEXDS   OF  THE  COXFLAGRATIOX.      187 

tering  and  with  rude  lips  I  speak,  ungainly  is  the  manner 
of  my  speech  as  one  leaping  among  furrows,  as  one 
advancing  unevenly  ;  for  all  this  I  fear  to  raise  thine 
anger,  and  to  provoke  instead  of  appeasing  thee  ;  never- 
theless, thou  wilt  do  unto  me  as  may  please  thee.  O 
Lord,  thoxi  hast  held  it  good  to  forsake  us  in  these  days, 
according  to  the  counsel  that  thou  hast  as  well  in  heaven 
as  in  hades, — alas  for  us,  in  that  thine  anger  and  indig- 
nation has  descended  upon  us  in  these  days  ;  alas  in  that 
the  many  and  grievous  afflictions  of  thy  wrath  have  ovei*- 
gone,  and  swallowed  us  up,  coming  down  even  as  stones, 
spears,  and  arroics  upon  the  xcretches  that  inhabit  the 
earth! — this  is  the  sore  pestilence  with  which  we  are 
afflicted  and  almost  destroyed.  O  valiant  and  all-power- 
ful Lord,  the  common  people  are  almost  made  an  end  of 
and  destroyed  /  a  great  destruction  the  ruin  and  pesti- 
lence already  make  in  this  nation  ;  and,  what  is  most 
pitiful  of  all,  the  little  children,  that  are  innocent  and 
understand  nothing,  only  to  play  with,  jyeb hies  and  to  heap 
up  little  mounds  of  earth,  they  too  die,  broken  and  dashed 
to  pieces  as  against  stones  and  a  xocdl — a  thing  very  piti- 
ful and  grievous  to  be  seen,  for  there  remain  of  them  not 
even  those  in  the  cradles,  nor  those  that  could  not  walk 
or  speak.  Ah,  Lord,  how  all  things  become  confounded! 
of  young  and  old  and  of  men  and  women  there  remains 
neither  branch  nor  root  ;  thy  nation,  and  thy  people,  and 
thy  wealth,  are  leveled  cloion  and  destroyed. 

"  O  our  Lord,  protector  of  all,  most  valiant  and  most 
kind,  ichat  is  this  ? 

"Thine  anger  and  thine  indignation,  does  it  glory  or 
delight  in  hurling  the  stone,  and  arroio,  and  spear  f  The 
FIRE  of  the  2^<^stilence,  made  exceeding  hot,  is  upon  thy 
7iation,  as  a  fire  in  a  hut,  burning  and  smoking,  leaving 
nothing  upright  or  sound.  The  grinders  of  thy  teeth," 
(the  falling  stones),  "are  employed,  and  thy  bitter  lohips 
upon  the  miserable  of  thy  people,  who  have  become  lean, 
and  of  little  substance,  even  as  a  hollow  green  cane. 

"  Yea,  li'hat  doest  thou  note,  O  Lord,  most  strong, 
compassionate,  invisible,  and  impalpable,  whose  will  all 
things  obey,  upon  whose  disposal  depends  the  rule  of  the 
world,  to  whom  all  are  subject, — what  in  thy  divine  bi'east 


188  THE  LEGEXDS. 

hast  thou  decreed  ?  Peradventure,  hast  thou  altogether 
forsaken  thy  nation  and  thy  people  ?  Hast  thou  verily 
determined  that  it  utterly  2^erlsh,  and  that  there  be  no 
more  memory  of  it  in  the  world,  that  the  jnopled  place 
become  a  icooded  hill,  and  a  wilderxess  of  stoxes  ? 
Peradventure,  wilt  thou  permit  that  the  temples,  and 
the  places  of  prayer,  and  the  altars,  built  for  thy  ser\dce, 
he  razed  and  destroyed,  and  no  memory  of  them  left  ? 

"  Is  it,  indeed,  possible  that  thy  wrath  and  punishment 
and  vexed  indignation  are  altogether  implacable,  and  will 
go  on  to  the  end  to  our  destruction  ?  Is  it  already  fixed 
in  thy  divine  counsel  that  there  is  to  be  no  mercy  nor  pity 
for  us,  until  the  arrows  of  thy  fury  are  spent  to  oxir  utter 
jyerditlon  and  destruction  ?  Is  it  possible  that  this  lash 
and  chastisement  is  not  given  for  our  correction  and 
amendment,  but  only  for  our  total  destruction  and  oblit- 
eration;   that  THE   SUX   SHALL   XEVER   MORE    SHIXE    UPOX 

US,  but  that  ice  must  remain  in  perpetual  darkxess 
and  silence  ;  that  never  more  wilt  thou  look  upon  us  with 
eyes  of  mercy,  neither  little  nor  much  ? 

"  Wilt  thou  after  this  fashion  destroy  the  wretched 
sick  that  can  not  find  rest,  nor  turn  from  side  to  side,  whose 
mouth  and  teeth  are  filled  xoith  earth  and  scurf?  It  is  a 
sore  thing  to  tell  how  we  are  all  in  darkness,  having  none 
understanding  nor  sense  to  watch  for  or  aid  one  another. 
AVe  are  all  as  drunken,  and  without  understanding  :  with- 
out hope  of  any  aid,  already  the  little  children  perish  of 
hunger,  for  there  is  none  to  give  them  food,  nor  drink,  nor 
consolation,  nor  caress ;  none  to  give  the  breast  to  them 
that  suck,  for  their  fathers  and  mothers  have  died  and 
left  them  orphans,  suffering  for  the  sins  of  their  fathers." 

What  a  graphic  picture  is  all  this  of  the  remnant  of 
a  civilized  religious  race  hiding  in  some  deep  cavern,  in 
darkness,  their  friends  slaughtered  by  the  million  by 
the  falling  stones,  coming  like  arrows  and  spears,  and 
the  pestilence  of  poisonous  gases ;  their  food-supplies 
scanty ;  they  themselves  horrified,  awe-struck,  despair- 
ing, fearing  that  they  would  never  again  see  the  light ; 
that  this  dreadful  day  was  the  end  of  the  human  race 


OTHER  LEGENDS   OF  THE  CONFLAGRATION:     189 

and  of  the  world  itself  !  And  one  of  them,  perhaps  a 
priest,  cei'tainly  a  great  man,  wrought  up  to  eloquence, 
through  the  darkness  and  the  terror,  puts  up  this  pitiful 
and  pathetic  cry  to  the  supreme  God  for  mercy,  for  pro- 
tection, for  deliverance  from  the  awful  visitation. 

How  wonderful  to  think  that  the  priesthood  of  the 
Aztecs  have  through  ages  preserved  to  us,  down  to  this 
day,  this  cavern-hymn — one  of  the  most  ancient  of  the 
utterances  of  the  heart  of  man  extant  on  the  earth — and 
have  preserved  it  long  after  the  real  meaning  of  its  words 
was  lost  to  them  ! 

The  pi-ayer  continues  : 

"  O  our  Lord,  all-powerful,  full  of  mercy,  our  refuge, 
though  indeed  thine  anger  and  indignation,  thine  arroics 
and  stones,  have  sorely  hurt  this  poor  people,  let  it  be  as 
a  father  or  a  mother  that  rebiikes  children,  pulling  their 
ears,  pinching  their  arms,  whipping  them  with  nettles, 
pouring  chill  water  upon  them,  all  being  done  that  they 
may  amend  their  puerility  and  childishness.  Thy  chas- 
tisement and  indignation  have  lorded  and  prevailed  over 
these  thy  servants,  over  this  poor  people,  even  as  rain  fall- 
ing upon  the  trees  and  the  green  canes,  being  touched  of 
the  wind,  drops  also  upon  those  that  are  below. 

"  O  most  compassionate  Lord,  thou  knowest  that  the 
common  folk  are  as  children,  that  being  whipped  they  cry 
and  sob  and  repent  of  what  they  have  done.  Peradvent- 
ure,  already  these  poor  people  by  reason  of  their  chas- 
tisement weep,  sigh,  blame,  and  murmur  against  them- 
selves ;  in  thy  presence  they  blame  and  bear  witness 
against  their  bad  deeds,  and  punish  themselves  therefor. 
Our  Lord,  most  compassionate,  pitiful,  noble,  and  pre- 
cious, let  a  time  be  given  the  people  to  repent  ;  let  the 
past  chastisement  suffice  ;  let  it  end  here,  to  begin  again  if 
the  reform  endure  not.  Pardon  and  overlook  the  sins 
of  the  people  ;  cause  thine  anger  and  thy  resentment  to 
cease  ;  repress  it  again  within  thy  breast  that  it  destroy 
no  further  ;  let  it  rest  there  ;  let  it  cease,  for  of  a  surety 
none  can  avoid  death  nor  escape  to  any  place P 


190  THE  LEGEXDS. 

"  We  owe  tribute  to  death  ;  and  all  that  live  in  the 
world  are  vassals  thereof  ;  this  tribute  shall  every  man 
pay  with  his  life.  None  shall  avoid  from  following  death, 
for  it  is  thy  messenger  what  hour  soever  it  may  be  sent, 
hungering  and  thirsting  always  to  devour  all  that  are  in 
the  world  and  so  powerful  that  none  shall  escape  ;  then, 
indeed,  shall  every  man  be  judged  according  to  his  deeds. 
O  most  pitiful  Lord,  at  least  take  pity  and  have  mercy 
upon  the  children  that  are  in  the  cradles,  upon  those  that 
can  not  walk  Have  mercy  also,  O  Lord,  upon  the  poor 
and  very  miserable,  who  have  nothing  to  eat,  nor  to  cover 
themselves  withal,  nor  a  place  to  sleep,  who  do  not  know 
what  thing  a  happy  day  is,  whose  days  pass  altogether  in 
pain,  affliction,  and  sadness.  Than  this,  were  it  not  bet- 
ter, O  Lord,  if  thou  shouldst  forget  to  have  mercy  upon  the 
soldiers  and  upon  the  men  of  war  whom  thou  wilt  have 
need  of  some  time  ?  Behold,  it  is  better  to  die  in  war  and 
go  to  serve  food  and  drink  in  the  house  of  the  Sun,  than 
to  die  in  this  pestilence  and  descend  to  hades.  O  most 
strong  Lord,  protector  of  all,  lord  of  the  earth,  governor 
of  the  world  and  universal  master,  let  the  sport  and  satis- 
faction thou  hast  already  taken  in  this  past  punishment 
suffice  ;  make  an  end  of  this  smoke  and  fog  of  thy  resent- 
ment ;  quench  also  the  burning  and  destroying  fire  of 
thine  anger;  let  serenity  come  and  clearness ;  let  the 
small  birds  of  thy  people  begin  to  sing  and "  (to)  "  ap- 
X>roach  the  sun ;  give  them  quiet  weather  ;  so  that 
they  may  cause  their  voices  to  reach  thy  highness,  and 
thou  mayest  know  them,"  * 

Now  it  may  be  doubted  by  some  whether  this  most 
extraordinary  supplication  could  have  come  down  from 
the  Glacial  Age  ;  but  it  must  be  remembered  that  it  may 
have  been  many  times  repeated  in  the  deep  cavern  before 
the  terror  fled  from  the  souls  of  the  desolate  fragment  of 
the  race  ;  and,  once  established  as  a  religious  prayer,  as- 
sociated with  such  dreadful  events,  who  would  dare  to 
change  a  word  of  it  ? 

*  Bancroft's  "  Native  Races,"  vol.  iii,  p.  200. 


OTHER  LEGENDS   OF  THE  CONFLAGRATION.     191 

Who  would  dare,  among  ourselves,  to  alter  a  sylla- 
ble of  the  "Lord's  Prayer"?  Even  though  Christian- 
ity should  endure  for  ten  thousand  years  upon  the 
face  of  the  earth  ;  even  though  the  art  of  writing  were 
lost,  and  civilization  itself  had  perished,  it  would  pass 
unchanged  from  mouth  to  mouth  and  from  generation 
to  generation,  crystallized  into  imperishable  diamonds  of 
thought,  by  the  conservative  power  of  the  religious  in- 
stinct. 

There  can  be  no  doubt  of  the  authenticity  of  this  and 
the  other  ancient  prayers  to  Tezcatlipoca,  which  I  shall 
quote  hereafter.  I  repeat  what  H.  H.  Bancroft  says,  in  a 
foot-note,  in  his  great  work  : 

"  Father  Bernardino  de  Sahagun,  a  Spanish  Francis- 
can, was  one  of  the  first  preachers  sent  to  Mexico,  where 
he  was  much  employed  in  the  instruction  of  the  native 
youth,  working  for  the  most  part  in  the  province  of 
Tezcuco.  While  there,  in  the  city  of  Tepeopulco,  in  the 
latter  part  of  the  sixteenth  century,  he  began  the  work, 
best  known  to  us  as  the  '  Historia  General  de  las  Cosas  de 
Nueva  Espaiia,'  from  which  the  above  prayers  have  been 
taken.  It  would  be  hard  to  imagine  a  work  of  such  a 
character  constructed  after  a  better  fashion  of  working 
than  his.  Gathering  the  principal  natives  of  the  town  in 
which  he  carried  on  his  labors,  he  induced  them  to  ap- 
point him  a  number  of  persons,  the  most  learned  and 
experienced  in  the  things  of  which  he  proposed  to  write. 
These  learned  Mexicans  being  collected.  Father  Sahagun 
was  accustomed  to  get  them  to  paint  down  in  their  native 
fashion  the  various  legends,  details  of  history  and  mythol- 
ogy, and  so  on,  that  he  wanted  ;  at  the  foot  of  the  said 
pictui'es  these  learned  Mexicans  wrote  out  the  explana- 
tions of  the  same  in  the  Mexican  tongue  ;  and  this  ex- 
planation the  Father  Sahagun  translated  into  Spanish. 
That  translation  purports  to  be  what  we  now  read  as  the 
'  Historia  General.'  "  * 

*  "  The  Xative  Races  of  the  Pacific  States,"  vol.  ili,  p.  231. 


192  THE  LEGENDS. 

Sahagiin  was  a  good  and  holy  man,  who  was  doubt- 
less insi)ired  of  God,  in  the  face  of  much  opposition  and 
many  doubts,  to  perpetuate,  for  the  benefit  of  the  race, 
these  wonderful  testimonials  of  man's  existence,  condi- 
tion, opinions,  and  feelings  in  the  last  great  cataclysm 
which  shook  the  whole  world  and  nearly  destroyed  it. 

Religions  may  perish  ;  the  name  of  the  Deity  may 
change  with  race  and  time  and  tongue  ;  but  He  can  never 
despise  such  noble,  exalted,  eloquent  appeals  from  the 
hearts  of  millions  of  men,  repeated  through  thousands  of 
generations,  as  these  Aztec  prayers  have  been.  Whether 
addressed  to  Tezcatlij^oca,  Zeus,  Jove,  Jehovah,  or  God, 
they  pass  alike  direct  from  the  heart  of  the  creature  to 
the  heart  of  the  Creator  ;  they  are  of  the  threads  that 
tie  together  matter  and  spirit. 

In  conclusion,  let  me  recapitulate  : 

1,  The  original  surface-rocks,  underneath  the  Drift, 
are,  we  have  seen,  decomposed  and  changed,  for  vaiying 
depths  of  from  one  to  one  hundred  feet,  by  fire  ;  they 
are  metamorphosed,  and  their  metallic  constituents  vapor- 
ized out  of  them  by  heat. 

%  Only  tremendous  heat  could  have  lifted  the  water 
of  the  seas  into  clouds,  and  formed  the  age  of  snow  and 
floods  evidenced  by  the  secondary  Drift. 

3.  The  traditions  of  the  following  races  tell  us  that 
the  earth  was  once  swept  by  a  great  conflagration  : 

a.  The  ancient  Britons,  as  narrated  in  the  mythology 
of  the  Druids. 

h.  The  ancient  Greeks,  as  told  by  Ilesiod. 

c.  The  ancient  Scandinavians,  as  appears  in  the  Kldcr 
Edda  and  Younger  Edda. 

d.  The  ancient  Romans,  as  narrated  by  Ovid. 

e.  The  ancient  Toltecs  of  Central  America,  as  told  in 
their  sacred  books. 


OTHER  LEGENDS   OF  THE  CONFLAGRATION.     193 

f.  The  ancient  Aztecs  of  Mexico,  as  transcribed  by 
Fray  de  Olnios. 

g.  The  ancient  Persians,  as  recorded  in  the  Zend- 
Avesta. 

h.  The  ancient  Hindoos,  as  told  in  their  sacred  books. 

i.  The  Tahoe  Indians  of  California,  as  appears  by 
their  living  traditions. 

Also  by  the  legends  of — 

j.  The  Tiipi  Indians  of  Brazil. 

k.  The  Tacullies  of  British  America. 

I.  The  Ute  Indians  of  California  and  Utah. 

m.  The  Peruvians. 

n.  The  Yurucares  of  the  Bolivian  Cordilleras. 

0.  The  Mbocobi  of  Paraguay. 

p.  The  Botocudos  of  Brazil. 

q.  The  Ojibway  Indians  of  the  United  States, 

r.  The  Wyandot  Indians  of  the  United  States. 

s.  Lastly,  the  Dog-rib  Indians  of  British  Columbia. 

We  must  concede  that  these  legends  of  a  world-em- 
bracing conflagration  represent  a  race-remembrance  of  a 
great  fact,  or  that  they  are  a  colossal  falsehood — an  inven- 
tion of  man. 

If  the  latter,  then  that  invention  and  falsehood  must 
have  been  concocted  at  a  time  when  the  ancestors  of  the 
Greeks,  Romans,  Hindoos,  Persians,  Goths,  Toltecs,  Az- 
tecs, Peruvians,  and  the  Indians  of  Brazil,  the  United 
States,  the  west  coast  of  South  America,  and  the  north- 
western extremity  of  North  America,  and  the  Polynesians, 
(who  have  kindred  traditions,)  all  dwelt  together,  as  one 
people,  alike  in  language  and  alike  in  color  of  their  hair, 
eyes,  and  skin.  At  that  time,  therefore,  all  the  widely 
separated  regions,  now  inhabited  by  these  races,  must 
have  been  without  human  inhabitants  ;  the  race  must 
have  been  a  mere  handful,  and  dwelling  in  one  spot. 
10 


194  THE  LEGEXDS. 

What  vast  lapses  of  time  must  have  been  required  before 
mankind  slowly  overflowed  to  these  remote  regions  of 
the  earth,  and  changed  into  these  various  races  speaking 
such  diverse  tongues  ! 

And  if  we  take  the  ground  that  this  universal  tra- 
dition of  a  world-conflagration  was  an  invention,  a  false- 
hood, then  we  must  conclude  that  this  handful  of  men, 
before  they  dispersed,  in  the  very  infancy  of  the  world, 
shared  in  the  propagation  of  a  prodigious  lie,  and  relig- 
iously perpetuated  it  for  tens  of  thousands  of  years. 

And  then  the  question  arises,  How  did  they  hit  upon  a 
lie  that  accords  so  completely  with  the  revelations  of  sci- 
ence ?  They  possessed  no  great  public  works,  in  that 
infant  age,  which  would  penetrate  through  hundreds  of 
feet  of  debris,  and  lay  bare  the  decomposed  rocks  beneath  ; 
therefore  they  did  not  make  a  theory  to  suit  an  observed 
fact. 

And  how  did  mankind  come  to  be  reduced  to  a  hand- 
ful ?  If  men  grew,  in  the  first  instance,  out  of  bestial 
forms,  mindless  and  speechless,  they  would  have  propa- 
gated and  covered  the  world  as  did  the  bear  and  the 
wolf.  But  after  they  had  passed  this  stage,  and  had  so 
far  developed  as  to  be  human  in  speech  and  brain,  some 
cause  reduced  them  again  to  a  handful.  What  was  it  ? 
Something,  say  these  legends,  some  fiery  object,  some 
blazing  beast  or  serpent,  which  apj^eared  in  the  heavens, 
which  filled  the  world  with  conflagrations,  and  which  de- 
stroyed the  human  race,  except  a  remnant,  who  saved 
themselves  in  caverns  or  in  the  water  ;  and  from  this 
seed,  this  handful,  mankind  again  replenished  the  earth, 
and  spread  gradually  to  all  the  continents  and  the  islands 
of  the  sea. 


LEGENDS   OF  THE  CAVE-LIFE.  195 


CHAPTER  YII. 

LEGESDS   OF  THE  CAVE-LIFE. 

I  HAVE  shown  that  man  could  only  have  escaped  the 
fire,  the  poisonous  gases,  and  the  falling  stones  and  clay- 
dust,  by  taking  refuge  in  the  water  or  in  the  deej)  caves 
of  the  earth. 

And  hence  everywhere  in  the  ancient  legends  we  find 
the  races  claiming  that  they  came  up  out  of  the  earth. 
Man  was  earth-born.  The  Toltecs  and  Aztecs  traced 
back  their  origin  to  "  the  seven  caves."  We  have  seen 
the  ancestors  of  the  Peruvians  emerging  from  the  prime- 
val cave,  Pacarin-Tampu ;  and  the  Aztec  Nanahuatzin 
taking  refuge  in  a  cave  ;  and  the  ancestors  of  the  Yuru- 
cares,  the  Takahlis,  and  the  Mbocobi  of  America,  all 
hiding  themselves  from  the  conflagration  in  a  cave  ;  and 
we  have  seen  the  tyrannical  and  cruel  race  of  the  Tahoe 
legend  buried  in  a  cave.  And,  passing  to  a  far-distant 
region,  we  find  the  Bungogees  and  Pankhoos,  Hill  tribes, 
of  the  most  ancient  races  of  Chittagong,  in  British  India, 
relating  that  "their  ancestors  came  out  of  a  cave  in  the 
earth,  under  the  guidance  of  a  chief  named  Tlandrok- 
pah."  * 

We  read  in  the  Toltec  legends  that  a  dreadful  hur- 
ricane visited  the  earth  in  the  early  age,  and  carried  away 
trees,  mounds,  horses,  etc.,  and  the  people  escaped  by 
seeking  safety  in  caves  and  places  where  the  great  hurri- 

*  Captain  Lewin,  "  The  Hill  Tribes  of  Chittagong,"  p.  95,  1869. 


196  THE  LEGENDS. 

cane  could  not  reach  them.  After  a  few  clays  they  came 
forth  "  to  see  what  had  become  of  the  earth,  when  they 
found  it  all  jDopulated  with  monkeys.  All  this  time  they 
were  in  darkness,  without  the  light  of  the  sun  or  the 
moon,  which  the  wind  had  brought  them."* 

A  North  American  tribe,  a  branch  of  the  Tinneh  of 
British  America,  have  a  legend  that  "the  earth  existed 
first  in  a  chaotic  state,  with  only  one  human  inhabitant,  a 
woman,  who  dwelt  in  a  cave  and  lived  on  berries."  She 
met  one  day  a  mysterious  animal,  like  a  dog,  who  trans- 
formed himself  into  a  handsome  young  man,  and  they 
became  the  parents  of  a  giant  race,  f 

There  seems  to  be  an  allusion  to  the  cave-life  in  Ovid, 
where,  detailing  the  events  that  followed  soon  after  the 
creation,  he  says  : 

"Then  for  the  first  time  did  the  parched  air  glow  vnth 
suU7y  heat,  and  the  ice,  bound  up  by  the  winds,  was 
pendent.  Then  for  the  first  time  did  men  enter  houses  ; 
those  houses  were  caverns,  and  thick  shrubs,  and  twigs 
fastened  together  with  bark."  J 

But  it  is  in  the  legends  of  the  Navajo  Indians  of 
North  America  that  we  find  the  most  complete  account 
of  the  cave-life. 

It  is  as  follows  : 

"  The  Navajos,  living  north  of  the  Pueblos,  say  that 
at  one  time  all  the  nations,  Navajos,  Pueblos,  Coyoteros, 
and  tohite  ^yeople,  lived  together  under  ground,  in  the  heart 
of  a  mountain,  near  the  river  San  Juan.  Their  food  icas 
meat,  which  they  had  in  abundance,  for  all  kinds  of  game 
were  closed  up  with  them  in  their  cave  /  but  their  light  w^as 
dim,  and  only  endured  for  a  few  hours  each  day.  There 
were,  happily,  two  dumb  men  among  the  Navajos,  flute- 

*  "  North  Americans  of  Antiquity,"  p.  239. 
f  Bancroft's  "  Native  Races,"  vol.  iii,  p.  105. 
X  "  The  Metamorphoses,"  Fable  IV. 


LEGENDS   OF  THE  CAVE-LIFE.  197 

players,  who  enlivened  tlie  darkness  with  music.  One  of 
these,  striking  by  chance  on  the  roof  of  the  limbo  with 
his  flute,  brought  out  a  hollow  sound,  upon  which  the 
elders  of  the  tribe  determined  to  bore  in  the  direction 
whence  the  sound  came.  The  flute  was  then  set  up 
against  the  roof,  and  the  Raccoon  sent  w^  the  tube  to 
dig  a  way  out,  but  he  could  not.  Then  the  Moth-worm 
mounted  into  the  breach,  and  bored  and  bored  till  he 
found  himself  suddenly  on  the  outside  of  the  mountain, 
and  surrounded  by  icater.'''' 

"VYe  shall  see  hereafter  that,  in  the  early  ages,  man- 
kind, all  over  the  world,  was  divided  into  totemic  septs  or 
families,  bearing  animal  names.  It  was  out  of  this  fact 
that  the  fables  of  animals  possessing  human  speech  arose. 
When  we  are  told  that  the  Fox  talked  to  the  Crow  or  the 
Wolf,  it  simply  means  that  a  man  of  the  Fox  totem  talked 
to  a  man  of  the  Crow  or  Wolf  totem.  And,  consequent- 
ly, when  we  read,  in  the  foregoing  legend,  that  the  Rac- 
coon went  up  to  dig  a  way  out  of  the  cave  and  could  not, 
it  signifies  that  a  man  of  the  Raccoon  totem  made  the 
attempt  and  failed,  while  a  man  of  the  Moth-worm  to- 
tem succeeded.  We  shall  see  hei'eafter  that  these  totemic 
distinctions  probably  represented  original  race  or  ethnic 
differences. 

The  Navajo  legend  continues  : 

"Under  these  novel  circumstances,  he,  (the  Moth- 
worm,)  heaped  \v^  a  little  m.ound,  and  set  himself  down  on 
it  to  observe  and  ponder  the  situation.  A  critical  situa- 
tion enough  !— for  from  the  four  corners  of  the  universe 
four  great  white  Swans  bore  down  upon  him,  every  one 
with  two  arrows,  one  under  each  wing.  The  Swan  from 
the  north  reached  him  first,  and,  having  pierced  him  with 
two  arrows,  drew  them  out  and  examined  their  points, 
exclaiming,  as  the  result,  '  He  is  of  my  race.'  So,  also, 
in  succession,  did  all  the  others.  Then  they  went  away  ; 
and  toward  the  directions  in  which  they  departed,  to  the 
north,  south,  east,  and  west,  were  found  four  great  ar- 


198  THE  LEGENDS. 

royos,  by  which  all  the  water  flo^ced  off,  leaving  only 
MUD.  The  AVorin  now  returned  to  the  cave,  and  the 
Raccoon  went  np  into  the  mnd,  sinking  in  it  mid-leg 
deep,  as  the  marks  on  his  fur  show  to  this  day.  And  the 
wind  began  to  rise,  sweeping  up  the  four  great  arroyos, 
and  the  mud  was  dried  aioay. 

"  Then  the  men  and  the  animals  began  to  come  np 
from  their  cave,  and  their  coming  up  required  several 
days.  First  came  the  Navajos,  and  no  sooner  had  they 
reached  the  surface  than  they  commenced  gaming  at 
patole,  their  favorite  game.  Then  came  the  Pueblos  and 
other  Indians,  who  crop  their  hair  and  build  houses. 
Lastly  came  the  white  people,  who  started  off  at  once/br 
the  rising  sun,  and  were  lost  sight  of  for  many  winters. 

"  When  these  nations  lived  xmder  ground  they  all 
spake  one  tongue ;  but,  with  the  light  of  day  and  the 
level  of  earth,  came  many  languages.  The  earth  was  at 
this  time  very  small,  and  the  light  was  quite  as  scanty  as 
it  had  been  down  below,  for  there  was  as  yet  no  heaven, 
no  sun,  nor  moo7i,  nor  stars.  So  another  council  of  the 
ancients  was  held,  and  a  committee  of  their  number  ap- 
pointed to  manufacture  these  luminaries."  * 

Here  we  have  the  same  story  : 

In  an  ancient  age,  before  the  races  of  men  had  differ- 
entiated, a  remnr.nt  of  mankind  was  driven,  by  some  great 
event,  into  a  cave  ;  all  kinds  of  animals  had  sought  shelter 
in  the  same  place  ;  something — the  Drift — had  closed  up 
the  mouth  of  the  cavern  ;  the  men  subsisted  on  the  ani- 
mals. At  last  they  dug  their  way  out,  to  find  the  world 
covered  with  mud  and  water.  Great  winds  cut  the  mud 
into  deep  valleys,  by  which  the  waters  ran  oif.  The  mud 
was  everywhere  ;  gradually  it  dried  up.  But  outside  the 
cave  it  was  nearly  as  dark  as  it  was  within  it ;  the  clouds 
covered  the  world  ;  neither  sun,  moon,  nor  stars  could  be 
seen  ;  the  earth  was  very  small,  that  is,  but  little  of  it 
was  above  the  waste  of  waters. 

*  Bancroft's  "Native  Races,"  vol.  iii,  p.  81. 


LEGENDS   OF  THE  CAVE-LIFE.  199 

AbcI  here  we  have  tlie  people  longing  for  the  return  of 
the  sun.  The  legend  proceeds  to  give  an  account  of  the 
making  of  the  sun  and  moon.  The  dumb  fluter,  who  had 
charge  of  the  construction  of  the  sun,  through  his  clumsi- 
ness, came  near  setting  fire  to  the  icorlcl. 

"  The  old  men,  however,  either  more  lenient  than  Zeus, 
or  lacking  his  thunder,  contented  themselves  with  forcing 
the  offender  back  by  puffing  the  smoke  of  their  pipes  into 
his  face." 

Here  we  have  the  event,  which  properly  should  have 
preceded  the  cave-story,  brought  in  subsequent  to  it. 
The  sun  nearly  burns  up  the  earth,  and  the  earth  is  saved 
amid  the  smoke  of  incense  from  the  pipes  of  the  old  men 
— the  gods.  And  we  are  told  that  the  increasing  size  of 
the  earth  has  four  times  rendei'ed  it  necessary  that  the  sun 
should  be  put  farther  back  from  the  earth.  The  clearer 
the  atmosphere,  the  farther  away  the  sun  has  appeared. 

"  At  night,  also,  the  other  dumb  man  issues  from  this 
cave,  bearing  the  moon  under  his  arm,  and  lighting  up 
such  part  of  the  world  as  he  can.  Next,  the  old  men  set 
to  work  to  make  the  heavens,  intending  to  hroider  in  the 
stars  in  heautif  id  patterns  of  hears,  birds,  and  such  things.^^ 

That  is  to  say,  a  civilized  race  began  to  divide  up  the 
heavens  into  constellations,  to  which  they  gave  the  names 
of  the  Great  and  Little  Bear,  the  Wolf,  the  Serpent,  the 
Dragon,  the  Eagle,  the  Swan,  the  Crane,  the  Peacock,  the 
Toucan,  the  Crow,  etc.  ;  some  of  which  names  they  retain 
among  ourselves  to  this  day. 

"  But,  just  as  they  had  made  a  beginning,  a  prairie- 
wolf  rushed  in,  and,  crying  out,  '  Why  all  this  trouble 
and  embroidery  ? '  scattered  the  pile  of  stars  over  all  the 
floor  of  heaven,  just  as  they  still  lie." 

This  iconoclastic  and  uncesthetical  prairie-wolf  rejD- 
resents  a  barbarian's  incapacity  to  see  in  the  arrangement 


200  THE  LEGENDS. 

of  the  stars  any  sucb  constellations,  or,  in  fact,  anything 
but  an  nnnieaning  jumble  of  cinders. 

And  then  we  learn  how  the  tribes  of  men  separated  : 

"  The  old  men  "  (the  civilized  race,  the  gods)  "  pre- 
pared two  earthen  tin-ages,  or  water-jars,  and  having 
decorated  one  with  bright  colors,  filled  it  with  trifles  ; 
while  the  other  was  left  plain  on  the  outside,  but  filled 
within  with  flocks  and  herds  and  riches  of  all  kinds. 
These  jars  being  covered,  and  presented  to  the  Navajos 
and  Pueblos,  the  former  chose  the  gaudy  but  paltry  jar ; 
while  the  Pueblos  received  the  plain  and  rich  vessel — 
each  nation  showing,  in  its  choice,  traits  which  charac- 
terize it  to  this  day." 

In  the  legends  of  the  Lenni-Lenape, — the  Delaware 
Indians, — mankind  was  once  buried  in  the  earth  with  a 
wolf ;  and  they  owed  their  release  to  the  wolf,  who 
scratched  away  the  soil  and  dug  out  a  means  of  escape 
for  the  men  and  for  himself.  The  Root-Diggers  of  Cali- 
fornia were  released  in  the  same  way  by  a  coyote."  * 

"  The  Tonkaways,  a  wild  people  of  Texas,  still  cele- 
brate this  early  entombment  of  the  race  in  a  most  curious 
fashion.  They  have  a  grand  annual  dance.  One  of  them, 
naked  as  he  was  born,  is  buried  in  the  earth  ;  the  others, 
clothed  in  wolf-skins,  w^alk  over  him,  snuff  ai'ound  him, 
howl  in  lupine  style,  and  finally  dig  Jdm  up  loith  their 
nails.''''  f 

Compare  this  American  custom  with  the  religious 
ceremony  of  an  ancient  Italian  tribe  : 

"Three  thousand  years  ago  the  Hirpani,  or  Wolves, 
an  ancient  Sabine  tribe  of  Italy,  were  wont  to  collect  on 
Mount  Soracte,  and  there  go  through  certain  rites,  in 
memory  of  an  oracle  which  predicted  their  extinction 
when  they  ceased  to  gain  their  living  as  wolves  do,  by 
violence  and  plunder.     Therefore  they  dressed  in  wolf- 

*  Brinton's  "  Myths  of  the  New  World,"  p.  247.  f  I'^"!- 


LEGENDS   OF  THE  CAVE-LIFE.  201 

skins,  ran  with  barks  and  hotels  over  burninr/  coals,  and 
gnawed  wolfishly  whatever  they  could  seize."  * 

All  the  tribes  of  the  Creeks,  Seminoles,  Choctaws, 
Chickasaws,  and  Katehez,  w^ho,  according  to  tradition, 
were  in  remote  times  banded  into  one  common  confeder- 
acy, unanimously  located  their  earliest  ancestry  near  an 
artificial  eminence  in  the  valley  of  the  Big  Black  River, 
in  the  Natchez  country,  whence  they  pretended  to  have 
emerged.  This  hill  is  an  elevation  of  earth  about  half  a 
mile  square  and  fifteen  or  tw^enty  feet  high.  From  its 
northeast  corner  a  wall  of  equal  height  extends  for  nearly 
half  a  mile  to  the  high  land.  This  was  the  Nunne  Chaha, 
properly  JS'anih  icaiya,  sloj^ing  hill,  famous  in  Choctaw 
story,  and  which  Captain  Gregg  found  they  had  not  yet 
foi'gotten  in  their  Western  home. 

"  The  legend  was,  that  in  its  center  was  a  cave,  the 
house  of  the  Master  of  Breath.  Here  he  made  the  first 
men  from  the  clay  around  him,  and,  as  at  that  time  the 
tcaters  covered  the  earth,  he  raised  the  wall  to  dry  them 
on.  When  the  soft  mud  had  hardened  into  elastic  flesh 
and  firm  bone,  he  banished  the  xcaters  to  their  channels 
and  beds,  and  gave  the  dry  land  to  his  creatures."  f 

Here,  again,  we  have  the  beginnings  of  the  present 
race  of  men  in  a  cave,  surrounded  by  clay  and  water, 
which  covered  the  earth,  and  we  have  the  water  subsiding 
into  its  channels  and  beds,  and  the  dry  land  appearing, 
whereupon  the  men  emerged  from  the  cave. 

A  parallel  to  this  Southern  legend  occurs  among  the 
Six  Nations  of  the  North.  They  with  one  consent  looked 
to  a  mountain  near  the  falls  of  the  Oswego  River,  in  the 
State  of  New  York,  as  the  locality  where  their  forefathers 
saw  the  light  of  day  ;  and  their  name,  Oneida,  signifies 
the  people  of  the  stone. 

*  Brinton's  "  Myth's  of  the  New  World,"  p.  247.  f  Ibid.,  p.  242. 


203  THE  LEGENDS. 

The  cave  of  Pacarin-Tampu,  already  alluded  to,  the 
Lodgings  of  the  Dawn,  or  the  Place  of  Birth  of  the  Pe- 
ruvians, was  five  leagues  distant  from  Cuzco,  surrounded 
by  a  sacred  grove,  and  inclosed  with  temples  of  great  an- 
tiquity. 

*'  From  its  hallowed  recesses  the  mythical  civilizers  of 
Peru,  the  first  of  men,  emerged,  and  in  it,  during  the  time 
of  the  flood,  the  remnants  of  the  race  escaped  the  fury  of 
the  waves."  * 

"We  read  in  the  legends  of  Oraibi,  hereafter  quoted 
more  fully,  that  the  people  climbed  up  a  ladder  from  a 
lower  world  to  this — that  is,  they  ascended  from  the 
cave  in  which  they  had  taken  refuge.  This  was  in  an  age 
of  cold  and  darkness  ;  there  was  yet  no  sun  or  moon. 

The  natives  in  the  neighborhood  of  Mount  Shasta,  in 
Northern  California,  have  a  strange  legend  which  refers 
to  the  age  of  Caves  and  Ice. 

They  say  the  Great  Spirit  made  Mount  Shasta  first : 

"  Boring  a  hole  in  the  sJcy,''^  (the  heavens  cleft  in 
twain  of  the  Edda  ?)  "  using  a  large  stone  as  an  auger,"  (the 
fall  of  stones  and  pebbles  ?)  " he  pushed  down  snoio  and 
ice  tintil  they  reached  the  desired  height  ;  then  he  stepped 
from  cloud  to  cloud  down  to  the  great  icy  }nle,  and  from 
it  to  the  earth,  where  he  planted  the  first  trees  by  merely 
piitting  his  finger  into  the  soil  here  and  there.  The  sun 
began  to  melt  the  snoio  /  the  snoio  2^1'oduced  iimter  ;  the 
water  ran  doton  the  sides  of  the  mountains,  refreshed  the 
trees,  and  made  rivers.  The  Creator  gathered  the  leaves 
that  fell  from  the  trees,  blew  upon  them,  and  they  became 
birds,"  etc.f 

This  is  a  representation  of  the  end  of  the  Glacial  Age. 

But  the  legends  of  these  Indians  of  Mount  Shasta  go 

still  further.     After  narrating,  as  above,  the  fall  of    a 

*  Balboa,  "  Histoire  du  Pei'ou,"  p.  4. 

f  Bancroft's  "  Native  Races,"  vol.  iii,  p.  90. 


LEGENDS  OF  THE  CAVE-LIFE.  203 

stone  from  heaven,  and  the  formation  of  immense  masses 
of  ice,  which  subsequently  melted  and  formed  rivers,  and 
after  the  Creator  had  made  trees,  birds,  and  animals,  es- 
pecially the  grizsly  bear,  then  we  have  a  legend  which 
reminds  us  of  the  cave-life  which  accompanied  the  great 
catastrophe  : 

"  Indeed,  this  animal  "  (the  grizzly  bear)  "  was  then 
so  large,  strong,  and  cunning,  that  the  Creator  somewhat 
feared  him,  and  hollowed  out  Mount  Shasta  as  a  wigwam 
for  himself,  where  he  might  reside  while  on  earth  in  the 
most  perfect  security  and  comfort.  So  the  smoke  was 
soon  to  be  seen  curling  up  from  the  mountain  where  the 
Great  Spirit  and  his  family  lived,  and  still  live,  though 
their  hearth-fire  is  alive  no  longer,  now  that  the  white-man 
is  in  the  land," 

Here  the  superior  race  seeks  shelter  in  a  cave  on 
Mount  Shasta,  and  their  camji-fire  is  associated  with  the 
smoke  which  once  went  forth  out  of  the  volcano  ;  while 
an  inferior  race,  a  Neanderthal  race,  dwell  in  the  plains  at 
the  foot  of  the  mountain. 

"This  was  thousands  of  snows  ago,  and  there  came 
after  this  a  late  and  severe  spring-time,  in  which  a  mem- 
orable storm  blew  up  from  the  sea,  shaking  the  huge 
lodge  "  (Mount  Shasta)  "  to  its  base." 

(Another  recollection  of  the  Ice  Age.) 

"The  Great  Spii'it  commanded  his  daughter,  little 
more  than  an  infant,  to  go  up  and  bid  the  wind  to  be 
still,  cautioning  her,  at  the  same  time,  in  his  fatherly  way, 
not  to  put  her  head  out  into  the  blast,  but  only  to  thrust 
out  her  little  red  arm  and  make  a  sign,  before  she  de- 
livered her  message."  * 

Here  we  seem  to  have  a  reminiscence  of  the  cave- 
dwellers,  looking  out  at  the  terrible  tempest  from  their 
places  of  shelter, 

*  Bancroft's  "Native  Races,"  vol.  iii,  p.  91. 


204  THE  LEGEXDS. 

The  cMld  of  the  Great  Sj^irit  exposes  herself  too 
much,  is  caught  by  the  wind  and  blown  down  the  mount- 
ain-side, where  she  is  found,  shivering  on  the  snow,  by  a 
family  of  grizzly  bears.  These  grizzly  bears  evidently 
possessed  some  humane  as  well  as  human  traits  :  "  They 
walked  then  on  their  hind-legs  like  men,  and  talked,  and 
carried  clubs,  using  the  fore- limbs  as  men  use  their  arms." 
They  represent  in  their  bear-skins  the  rude,  fur-clad  race 
that  were  developed  during  the  intense  cold  of  the  Gla- 
cial Age. 

The  child  of  the  Great  Spirit,  the  superior  race,  inter- 
marries with  one  of  the  grizzly  bears,  and  from  this 
Pinion  came  the  race  of  men,  to  wit,  the  Indians. 

"  But  the  Great  Spirit  punished  the  grizzly  bears  by 
depriving  them  of  the  power  of  speech,  and  of  standing 
erect — in  short,  by  making  true  bears  of  them.  But  no 
Indian  will,  to  this  day,  kill  a  grizzly  bear,  recognizing  as 
he  does  the  tie  of  blood." 

Again,  we  are  told  : 

"  The  inhabitants  of  central  Europe  and  the  Teutonic 
races  who  came  late  to  England  place  their  mythical  he- 
roes imder  gi'ound  in  caves,  in  vaults  beneath  enchanted 
castles,  or  in  mounds  which  rise  up  and  open,  and  show 
their  buried  inhabitants  alive  and  busy  about  the  avoca- 
tions of  earthly  men.  ...  In  Morayshire  the  buried  race 
are  supposed  to  be  under  the  sandhills,  as  they  are  in  some 
parts  of  Brittany."  * 

Associated  with  these  legends  we  find  many  that  refer 
to  the  time  of  great  cold,  and  snow,  and  ice.  I  give  one 
or  two  specimens  : 

In  the  story  of  the  Iroquois,  (see  p.  173,  ante,)  we  are 
told  that  the  White  One,  [the  Light  One,  the  Sun,]  after 
he  had  destroyed  the  monster  who  covered  the  earth  with 

*  "Frost  and  Fire,"  vol.  ii,  p.  190. 


LEGENDS   OF  THE  CAVE-LIFE.  205 

blood  and  stones,  then  destroyed  the  gigantic  frog.  The 
frog,  a  cold-blooded,  moist  reptile,  was  always  the  em- 
blem of  water  and  cold ;  it  re^Dresented  the  great  ice- 
fields that  squatted,  frog-like,  on  the  face  of  the  earth. 
It  had  "  swallowed  all  the  waters,"  says  the  Iroquois 
legend  ;  that  is,  "  the  waters  were  congealed  in  it ;  and 
when  it  was  killed  great  and  destructive  torrents  broke 
forth  and  devastated  the  land,  and  Manibozho,  the  White 
One,  the  beneficent  Sun,  guided  these  waters  into  smooth 
streams  and  lakes."  The  Aztecs  adored  the  goddess  of 
water  under  the  figure  of  a  great  green  frog  carved  from 
a  single  emerald.* 

In  the  Omaha  we  have  the  fable  of  "  How  the  Rabbit 
killed  the  Winter,"  told  in  the  Indian  manner.  The 
Rabbit  was  probably  a  reminiscence  of  the  Great  Hare, 
Manabozho  ;  and  he,  probably,  as  we  shall  see,  a  recollec- 
tion of  a  great  race,  whose  totem  was  the  Hare. 

I  condense  the  Indian  story  : 

"The  Rabbit  in  the  past  time  moving  came  where  the 
Winter  was.  The  Winter  said  :  '  You  have  not  been  here 
lately  ;  sit  down.'  The  Rabbit  said  he  came  because  his 
grandmother  had  altogether  beaten  the  life  out  of  him,  ""^ 
(the  fallen  debris ?).  "The  Winter  went  hunting.  It 
was  very  cold:  there  teas  a  snoic-storm.  The  Rabbit 
scai'ed  up  a  deer.  '  Shoot  him,'  said  the  Rabbit.  '  No  ;  I 
do  not  hunt  such  things  as  that,'  said  the  Winter.  They 
came  upon  some  me^i.  That  was  the  Winter's  game.  He 
killed  the  men  and  boiled  them  for  supper^''  (cave-canni- 
balism). "The  Rabbit  refused  to  eat  the  human  flesh. 
The  Winter  went  hunting  again.  The  Rabbit  found  out 
from  the  Winter's  wife  that  the  thing  the  Winter  dreaded 
most  of  all  the  world  was  the  head  of  a  Rocky  Mountain 
sheep.  The  Rabbit  procured  one.  It  teas  dark.  He 
thi'ew  it  suddenly  at  the  Winter,  saying,  'Uncle,  that 
round  thing  by  you  is  the  head  of  a  Rocky  Mountain 

*  Brinton's  "Myths  of  the  New  World,"  p.  185. 


206       •  THE  LEGENDS. 

sheep.'  The  Winter  became  altogether  dead.  Only  the 
woman  remained.  Therefore  from  that  time  it  has  not 
been  very  cold.'''' 

Of  course,  any  attempt  to  interpret  such  a  crude  myth 
must  be  guess-work.  It  shows,  however,  that  the  Indians 
believed  that  there  was  a  time  when  the  winter  was  much 
more  severe  than  it  is  now  ;  it  was  very  cold  and  dark. 
Associated  with  it  is  the  destruction  of  men  and  canni- 
balism. At  last  the  Rabbit  brings  a  round  object,  (the 
Sun  ?),  the  head  of  a  Rocky  Mountain  sheep,  and  the 
Winter  looks  on  it,  and  perishes. 

Even  tropical  Peru  has  its  legend  of  the  Age  of  Ice. 

Garcilaso  de  la  Vega,  a  descendant  of  the  Incas,  has 
preserved  an  ancient  indigenous  poem  of  his  nation,  which 
seems  to  allude  to  a  great  event,  the  breaking  to  frag- 
ments of  some  large  object,  associated  with  ice  and  snow. 
Dr.  Brinton  translates  it  from  the  Quichua,  as  follows  : 

"Beauteous  princess, 
Lo,  thy  brother 
Hrealcs  thy  vessel 
Now  in  fragments. 
From  the  blow  come 
Thunder,  lightning, 
Strokes  of  lightning, 
And  thou,  princess, 
Tak'st  the  water. 
With  it  raineth, 
And  the  hail,  or 
Snoio  dispenseth. 
Viracocha, 
World-constructor, 
World-enliven  er, 
To  this  office 
Thee  appointed. 
Thee  created."  * 

*  "  Myths  of  the  New  World,"  p.  167. 


LEGENDS  OF  THE  CAVE-LIFE.  207 

But  it  may  be  asked,  How  in  such  a  period  of  terror 
and  calamity — as  we  must  conceive  the  comet  to  have 
caused — would  men  think  of  finding  refuge  in  caves  ? 

The  answer  is  plain  :  either  they  or  their  ancestors 
had  lived  in  caves. 

Caves  were  the  first  shelters  of  uncivilized  men.  It 
was  not  necessary  to  fly  to  the  caves  through  the  rain  of 
falling  debris;  many  were  doubtless  already  in  them 
when  the  great  world-storm  broke,  and  others  naturally 
sought  their  usual  dwelling-places. 

"  The  cavern,"  says  Brinton,  "  dimly  lingered  in  the 
memories  of  nations."* 

Man  is  born  of  the  earth  ;  he  is  made  of  the  clay  ; 
like  Adam,  created — 

"  Of  good  red  clay. 
Haply  from  Mount  Aornus,  beyond  sweep 
Of  the  black  eagle's  wing." 

The  cave-temples  of  India — the  oldest  temples,  prob- 
ably, on  earth — are  a  reminiscence  of  this  cave-life. 

We  shall  see  hereafter  that  Lot  and  his  daughters 
"  dwelt  in  a  cave  "  ;  and  we  shall  find  Job  hidden  away 
in  the  "narrow-mouthed  bottomless"  pit  or  cave. 

*  "  Myths  of  the  New  World,"  p.  244. 


208  THE  LEGENDS. 


CHAPTER  YIII. 

LEGENDS   OF  THE  AGE  OF  DAEE^ESS. 

All  the  cosmogonies  begin  with  an  Age  of  Darkness  ; 
a  damp,  cold,  rainy,  dismal  time. 

Hesiod  tells  us,  speaking  of  the  beginning  of  things  : 

"In  truth,  then,  forem,ost  sprang  Chaos.  .  .  .  But 
from  Chaos  were  born  Erehus  and  black  Night ;  and 
from  Night  again  sprang  forth  ^ther  and  Day,  whom 
she  bare  after  having  conceived  by  union  xoith  Erehus,'''' 

Aristophanes,  in  his  "  Aves,"  says  :  * 

"  Chaos  and  Night  and  black  Erebus  and  wide  Tar- 
tarus first  existed.''''  f 

Orpheus  says : 

'■'■From  the  beginning  the  gloomy  night  enveloped  and 
obscured  all  things  that  were  under  the  ether"  (the  clouds). 
"  The  earth  was  invisible  on  account  of  the  darkness,  but 
the  light  broke  through  the  ether''''  (the  clouds),  "and 
illuminated  the  earth." 

By  this  power  were  produced  the  sun,  moon,  and 
stars.  J 

It  is  from  Sanchoniathon  that  we  derive  most  of  the 
little  we  know  of  that  ancient  and  mysterious  people, 
the  Phoenicians.  He  lived  befoi*e  the  Trojan  war  ;  and 
of  his  writings  but  fragments  survive — quotations  in  the 
writings  of  others. 

*  "  The  Theogony."       •}■  Faber's  "  Origin  of  Pagan  Idolatry,"  vol.  i,  p.  255. 
X  Cory's  "  Fragments,"  p.  298. 


LEGENDS   OF  THE  AGE   OF  DARKNESS.  209 

He  tells  us  that — 

"  The  beginning  of  all  things  was  a  condensed,  windy- 
air,  or  a  breeze  of  thick  air,  and  a  chaos  turbid  and  Mack 
as  Erebus. 

"  Out  of  this  chaos  was  generated  Mot,  which  some 
call  Ilus,"  {mud,)  "  but  others  the  putrefaction  of  a 
watery  mixture.  And  from  this  sprang  all  the  seed  of 
the  creation,  and  the  generation  of  the  universe.  .  .  . 
And,  when  the  air  began  to  send  forth  light,  winds  were 
produced  and  clouds,  and  very  great  defluxions  and  tor- 
rents of  the  heavenly  loaters.^^ 

Was  this  "  thick  air "  the  air  thick  with  comet-dust, 
which  afterward  became  the  mud  ?  Is  this  the  meaning 
of  the  "  turbid  chaos  "  ? 

We  turn  to  the  Babylonian  legends.  Berosus  wrote 
from  records  preserved  in  the  temple  of  Belus  at  Babylon. 
He  says  : 

"There  was  a  time  in  which  there  existed  nothing  but 
darkness  and  an  abi/ss  of  waters,  wherein  resided  most 
hideous  beings,  which  were  produced  of  a  twofold  prin- 
cijile." 

Were  these  "hideous  beings"  the  comets? 
From  the  "  Laws  of  Menu,"  of  the  Hindoos,  we  learn 
that  the  universe  existed  at  first  in  darkness. 
We  copy  the  following  text  from  the  Vedas  : 

"  The  Supreme  Being  alone  existed  ;  afterward  there 
xcas  universal  darkness  ;  next  the  watery  ocean  was  pro- 
duced by  the  diffusion  of  virtue." 

We  turn  to  the  legends  of  the  Chinese,  and  we  find 
the  same  story  : 

Their  annals  begin  with  "  Pwan-ku,  or  the  Reign  of 
Chaos."  * 

*  "  The  Ancient  Dynasties  of  Berosus  and  China,"  Rev.  T.  P.  Craw- 
ford, D.  D.,  p.  4. 


210  THE  LEGENDS. 

And  we  are  told  by  the  Chinese  historians  that — 

"  P'an-ku  came  forth  in  the  midst  of  the  great  chaotic 
void,  and  we  know  not  his  origin  ;  that  he  knew  the  ra- 
tionale of  heaven  and  earth,  and  comprehended  the  changes 
of  the  Darkness  and  the  Light.''''  * 

He  "existed  before  the  shining  of  the  Light.'''' \  He 
was  "  the  Prince  of  Chaos." 

"  After  the  chaos  cleared  aicag,  heaven  appeared  first 
in  order,  then  earth,  then  after  they  existed,  and  the  at- 
raosphere  had  changed  its  character,  man  came  forth.^^l 

That  is  to  say,  P'an-ku  lived  through  the  Age  of  Dark- 
ness, during  a  chaotic  period,  and  while  the  atmosphere 
was  pestilential  with  the  gases  of  the  comet.  Where  did 
he  live  ?     The  Chinese  annals  tell  us  : 

*'  In  the  age  after  the  chaos,  when  heaven  and  earth 
had  Just  separated.^'' 

That  is,  when  the  great  mass  of  cloud  had  just  lifted 
from  the  earth  : 

"  Records  had  not  yet  been  established  or  insci'iptions 
invented.  At  first  even  the  rulers  dicelt  in  caves  and 
desert  places,  eating  raw  flesh  and  drinking  blood.  At 
this  fortunate  juncture  Pan-ku-sze  came  forth,  and  from 
that  time  heaven  and  earth  began  to  be  heaven  and  earth, 
men  and  things  to  be  men  and  things,  and  so  the  chaotic 
state  passed  away."  * 

This  is  the  rejuvenation  of  the  world  told  of  in  so 
many  legends. 

And  these  annals  tell  us  further  of  the  "  Ten  Stems," 
being  the  stages  of  the  earth's  primeval  history. 

"  At  Wu — the  Sixth  Stem — the  Darkness  and  the  Light 
unite  icith  injurious  effects — all  things  become  solid,''''  (fro- 
zen?), "and  the  Larkness  destroys  the  groicth  of  cdl  things. 

*  "  Compendium  of  Wong-shi-Shing,  1526-1590,"  Crawford,  p.  3. 
t  Ibid.  X  Ibid.,  p.  2.  *  Ibid.,  p.  3. 


LEGEXDS   OF  THE  AGE   OF  BARKXESS.  211 

"At  Kung — the  Seventh  Stem — the  Darkness  nijys  all 
thrngsy 

But  the  Darkness  is  passing  away  : 

"At  Jin — the  Ninth  Stem — the  Light  begins  to  nour- 
ish all  things  in  the  recesses  below. 

"  Lastly,  at  Tsze,  all  things  begin  to  germinate.''''  * 

The  same  story  is  told  in  the  "  Twelve  Branches." 

"  1.  K\cun-tun  stands  for  the  period  of  chaos,  the  cold 
midnight  darkness.  It  is  said  that  with  it  all  things  began 
to  germinate  in  the  hidden  recesses  of  the  under-world." 

In  the  2d — ChH-fun-yoh — "light  and  heat  become 
active,  and  all  things  begin  to  rise  in  obedience  to  its 
nature."  In  the  3d — Sheh-ti-kuh — the  stars  and  sun  prob- 
ably appear,  as  from  this  point  the  calendar  begins.  In 
the  5th — Chi-shii — all  things  in  a  torpid  state  begin  to 
come  forth.  In  the  8th — H'een-hia — all  things  harmonize, 
and  the  present  order  of  things  is  established ;  that  is  to  say, 
the  effects  of  the  catastrophe  have  largely  passed  away.f 

The  kings  who  govei-ned  before  the  Drift  Avere  called 
the  Rulers  of  heaven  and  earth  ;  those  who  came  after 
were  the  Rulers  of  man. 

"  Chert  Ching-huen  says  :  'The  Rulers  of  man  succeed- 
ed to  the  Rulers  of  heaven  and  the  Rulers  of  earth  in  the 
government ;  that  then  the  atmosphere  gradually  cleared 
axcag,  and  all  things  sprang  up  together  ;  that  the  order 
of  time  was  gradually  settled,  and  the  usages  of  society 
gradually  became  correct  and  respectful."  \ 

And  then  we  read  that  "the  day  and  night  had  not 
yet  been  divided,"  but,  after  a  time,  "  day  and  night  were 
distinguished  from  each  other."  * 

Here  we  have  the  history  of  some  event  which  changed 

*  "Compendium  of  Wong-shi-Shing,  1526-1590,"  Crawford,  pp.  4,  5. 
f  Ibid.,  p.  8.  X  Ibid.  *  Ibid.,  p.  7. 


212  THE  LEGENDS. 

the  dynasties  of  the  world  :  the  heavenly  kingdom  was 
succeeded  by  a  merely  human  one ;  there  were  chaos,  cold, 
and  darkness,  and  death  to  vegetation  ;  then  the  light  in- 
creases, and  vegetation  begins  once  more  to  germinate;  the 
atmosphere  is  thick  ;  the  heavens  rest  on  the  earth;  day 
and  night  can  not  be  distinguished  from  one  another,  and 
mankind  dwell  in  caves,  and  live  on  raw  meat  and  blood. 

Surely  all  this  accords  wonderfully  with  our  theory. 

And  here  we  have  the  same  story  in  another  form  : 

"  The  philosopher  of  Oraibi  tells  us  that  when  the 
people  ascended  by  means  of  the  magical  tree,  which  con- 
stituted the  ladder  from  the  lower  world  to  this,  they 
found  the  firmament,  tJie  ceiling  of  this  world,  low  down 
upon  the  earth — the  floor  of  this  world." 

That  is  to  say,  when  the  people  climbed  up,  from  the 
cave  in  which  they  were  hidden,  to  the  surface  of  the 
earth,  the  dense  clouds  rested  on  the  face  of  the  earth. 

"  Machito,  one  of  their  gods,  raised  the  firmament  on 
his  shoulders  to  where  it  is  now  seen.  Still  the  tcorldwas 
dark,  as  there  2cas  no  sun,  no  moon,  and  no  stars.  So 
the  people  murmured  because  of  the  darkness  and  the 
cold.  Machito  said,  '  Bring  me  seven  maidens '  ;  and 
they  brought  him  seven  maidens  ;  and  he  said,  '  Bring 
me  seven  baskets  of  cotton-bolls '  ;  and  they  brought  him 
seven  baskets  of  cotton-bolls  ;  and  he  taught  the  seven 
maidens  to  weave  a  magical  fabric  from  the  cotton,  and 
when  they  had  finished  it  he  held  it  aloft,  and  the  breeze 
carried  it  away  toward  the  firmament,  and  in  the  twink- 
ling of  an  eye  it  was  transformed  into  a  beautiful  and 
full-orbed  moon  ;  and  the  same  breeze  caught  the  rem- 
nants of  flocculent  cotton,  which  the  maidens  had  scattered 
during  their  work,  and  carried  them  aloft,  and  they  were 
transformed  into  bright  stars.  But  still  it  teas  cold ;  and 
the  people  murmured  again,  and  Machito  said,  'Bring  me 
seven  buffalo-robes '  ;  and  they  brought  him  seven  buffalo- 
robes,  and  from  the  densely  matted  hair  of  the  robes  he 
wove  another  wonderful  fabric,  which  the  storm  carried 


LEGENDS   OF  THE  AGE   OF  DARKNESS.  213 

away  into  the  sky,  and  it  was  transformed  into  the  full- 
orbed  sun.  Then  Machito  appointed  times  and  seasons, 
and  ways  for  the  heavenly  bodies  ;  and  the  gods  of  the 
firmament  have  obeyed  the  injunctions  of  Machito  from 
the  day  of  their  creation  to  the  present."  * 

Among  the  Thlinkeets  of  British  Columbia  there  is  a 
legend  that  the  Great  Crow  or  Raven,  Yehl,  was  the  cre- 
ator of  most  things  ; 

"  T^ry  dark,  damp,  and  chaotic  was  the  world  in  the 
beginning  ;  nothing  with  breath  or  body  moved  there  ex- 
cept Yehl  ;  in  the  likeness  of  a  raven  he  brooded  over  the 
mist ;  his  black  winds  beat  down  the  vast  confusion  ;  the 
waters  tcent  back  before  him  and  the  dry  land  appeared. 
The  Thlinkeets  were  placed  on  the  earth — though  how  or 
when  does  not  exactly  appear — while  the  world  was  still 
in  darkness,  and  without  sun,  moon,  or  stcas.''^  f 

The  legend  proceeds  at  considerable  length  to  tell  the 
doings  of  Yehl.  His  uncle  tried  to  slay  him,  and,  when 
he  failed,  "he  imprecated  with  a  potent  curse  a  deluge, 
upon  all  the  earth.  .  .  .  The  flood  came,  the  waters  rose 
and  rose  ;  but  Yehl  clothed  himself  in  his  bird-skin,  and 
soared  up  to  the  heavens,  where  he  stuck  his  beak  into  a 
cloud,  and  remained  until  the  waters  were  assuaged."  | 

This  tradition  reminds  us  of  the  legend  of  the  Thes- 
salian  Cerambos,  "  who  escaped  the  flood  by  rising  into 
the  air  on  wings,  given  him  by  the  nymphs." 

I  turn  now  to  the  traditions  of  the  Miztecs,  who 
dwelt  on  the  outskirts  of  the  Mexican  Empire  ;  this  le- 
gend was  taken  by  Fray  Gregoria  Garcia  *  from  a  book 
found  in  a  convent  in  Cuilapa,  a  little  Indian  town,  about 
a  league  and  a  half  south  of  Oajaca  ;  the  book  had  been 
compiled  by  the   vicar  of   the   convent,   "just   as  they 

*  "Popular  Science  Monthly,"  October,  18T9,  p.  800. 

•f-  Bancroft's  "Native  Races,"  vol.  iii,  p.  98.  X  ^^i^-,  P-  99- 

*  "  Origen  de  los  Ind.,"  pp.  327-329. 


214  THE  LEGENDS. 

themselves  were  accustomed  to  deiDict  and  to  interpret  it 
in  their  primitive  scrolls  "  : 

"  In  the  year  and  in  the  day  of  obscurity  and  dark- 
ness,'''' (the  days  of  the  dense  clouds  ?),  "  yea,  even  before 
the  days  or  the  years  were,"  (before  the  visible  revolution 
of  the  sun  marked  the  days,  and  the  universal  darkness 
and  cold  prevented  the  changes  of  the  seasons  ?),  "  when 
the  world  was  in  great  darkness  and  chaos,  when  the 
earth  was  covered  with  water,  and  there  was  nothing  but 
mud  and  slime  on  all  the  face  of  the  earth — behold  a  god 
became  visible,  and  his  name  was  the  Deer,  and  his  sur- 
name was  the  Lion-snake.  There  appeared  also  a  very 
beautiful  goddess  called  the  Deer,  and  surnamed  the 
Tiger-snake.  These  two  gods  were  the  origin  and  begin- 
ing  of  all  the  gods." 

This  lion-snake  was  probably  one  of  the  comets  ;  the 
tiger-snake  was  doubtless  a  second  comet,  called  after  the 
tiger,  on  account  of  its  variegated,  mottled  appearance. 
It  will  be  observed  they  appeared  before  the  light  had 
returned. 

These  gods  built  a  temple  on  a  high  place,  and  laid 
out  a  garden,  and  waited  patiently,  offering  sacrifices  to 
the  higher  gods,  wounding  themselves  with  flint  knives, 
and  "praying  that  it  might  seem  good  to  them  to  shape 
the  firmament,  and  lighten  the  darkness  of  the  world, 
and  to  establish  the  foundation  of  the  earth  ;  or,  rather, 
to  gather  the  waters  together  so  that  the  earth  might  ap- 
pear— as  they  had  no  place  to  rest  in  save  only  one  little 
garden." 

Here  we  have  the  snakes  and  the  people  confounded 
together.  The  earth  was  afterward  made  fit  for  the  use 
of  mankind,  and  at  a  later  date  there  came — 

"  A  great  deluge,  wherein  perished  many  of  the  sons 
and  daughters  that  had  been  born  to  the  gods  ;  and  it  is 
said  that,  when  the  deluge  was  passed,  the  human  race 


LEGENDS   OF  THE  AGE  OF  DARKNESS.         215 

was  restored,  as   at  the   first,  and   the  Miztec  kingdom 
poj)ulated,  and  the  heavens  and  the  earth  established."  * 

Father  Duran,  in  his  MS.  "  History  Antique  of  New 
Spain,"  written  in  a.  d.  1585,  gives  the  Cholula  legend, 
which  commences  : 

"In  the  beginning,  before  the  light  of  the  sun  had 
been  created,  this  land  was  in  obscurity  and  darkness  and 
void  of  any  created  thing." 

In  the  Toltec  legends  we  read  of  a  time  when — 

"  There  was  a  tremendous  hurricane  that  carried  away 
trees,  mounds,  houses,  and  the  largest  edifices,  notwith- 
standing which  many  men  and  women  escaped, priticipalli/ 
in  caves,  and  places  where  the  great  hurricane  could  not 
reach  them.  A  few  days  having  passed,  they  set  out  to 
see  what  had  become  of  the  earth,  when  they  found  it  all 
populated  with  monkeys.  All  this  time  they  icere  hi 
darkness,  vnthout  seeing  the  light  of  the  sun,  nor  the 
moon,  that  the  wind  had  brought  themy  f 

In  the  Aztec  creation-myths,  according  to  the  ac- 
counts furnished  by  Mendieta,  and  derived  from  Fray 
Andres  de  Olmos,  one  of  the  earliest  of  the  Christian 
missionaries  among  the  Mexicans,  we  have  the  following 
legend  of  the  "  Return  of  the  Sun  "  : 

"  J^ow,  there  had  been  no  sun  in  existence  for  many 
years ;  so  the  gods  being  assembled  in  a  place  called 
Teotihuacan,  six  leagues  from  Mexico,  and  gathered  at 
the  time  aroiuid  a  great  fire,  told  their  devotees  that  he 
of  them  who  should  first  cast  himself  into  that  fire  should 
have  the  honor  of  being  transformed  into  a  sun.  So,  one 
of  them,  called  Nanahuatzin  .  .  .  flung  himself  into  the 
fire.  Then  the  gods "  (the  chiefs  ?)  "  began  to  peer 
through  the  gloom  in  all  directions /b>'  the  expected  light, 
and  to  make  bets  as  to  what  part  of  heaven  he  should 

*  Bancroft's  "Native  Races,"  vol.  iii,  pp.  71-73. 
f  "North  Americans  of  Antiquity,"  p.  239. 


216  THE  LEGEXDS. 

first  appear  in.  Some  said  '  Here,'  and  some  said  '  There ' ; 
but  when  the  sun  rose  they  were  all  proved  wrong,  for 
not  one  of  them  had  fixed  upon  the  east." 

In  the  long-continued  darkness  they  had  lost  all 
knowledge  of  the  cardinal  points.  The  ancient  land- 
marks, too,  were  changed. 

The  "Popul  Vuh,"  the  national  book  of  the  Quiches, 
tells  us  of  four  ages  of  the  world.  The  man  of  the  first 
age  was  made  of  clay  ;  he  was  "  strengthless,  inept, 
watery  ;  he  could  not  move  his  head,  his  face  looked  but 
one  way  ;  his  sight  w'as  restricted,  he  could  not  look 
behind  him,"  that  is,  he  had  no  knowledge  of  the  past ; 
"  he  had  been  endowed  with  language,  but  he  had  no  in- 
telligence, so  he  was  consumed  in  the  water."  * 

Then  followed  a  higher  race  of  men  ;  they  filled  the 
world  with  their  progeny  ;  they  had  intelligence,  but  no 
moral  sense";  "they  forgot  the  Heart  of  Heaven." 
They  were  destroyed  hy  fire  and  pitch  from  heaven,  ac- 
companied by  tremendous  earthquakes,  from  which  only 
a  few  escaped. 

Then  followed  a  period  tchen  all  teas  darTc,  save  the 
white  light  "  of  the  morning-star — sole  light  as  yet  of  the 
primeval  world  " — probably  a  volcano. 

"  Once  more  are  the  gods  in  council,  in  the  darkness, 
in  the  night  of  a  desolated  universe.'''' 

Then  the  people  prayed  to  God  for  light,  evidently  for 
the  return  of  the  sun  : 

«  '  Hail !  O  Creator  ! '  they  cried,  '  O  Former  !  Thou 
that  hearest  and  understandest  us  !  abandon  i;s  not  !  for- 
sake us  not  !  O  God,  thou  that  art  in  heaven  and  on  earth  ; 
O  Heart  of  Heaven  !  O  Heart  of  Earth  !  give  us  descend- 
ants, and  a  posterity  as  long  as  the  light  endure.''  "... 

In  other  words,  let  not  the  human  race  cease  to  be. 
*  Bancroft's  "  Native  Races,"  toI.  iii,  p.  46. 


LEGEXLS   OF  THE  AGE   OF  DARKNESS.  217 

*'  It  was  thus  they  spake,  living  tranquilly,  invoking 
the  return  of  the  light  /  waiting  the  7'isijig  of  the  sun  / 
watching  the  star  of  the  morning,  precursor  of  the  sun. 
But  no  sun  came,  and  the  four  men  and  their  descendants 
grew  uneasy.  '  We  have  no  person  to  watch  over  us,' 
they  said  ;  '  nothing  to  guard  our  symbols  ! '  Then  they 
adopted  gods  of  their  own,  and  waited.  They  kindled 
fires,  for  the  climate  was  colder  y  then  there  fell  great 
rains  and  hail-storms,  and  put  out  their  fires.  Several 
times  they  made  fires,  and  several  times  the  rains  and 
storms  extinguished  them.  Many  other  trials  also  they 
underwent  in  Tulan,  famines  and  such  things,  and  a 
general  dampness  and  cold — for  the  earth  was  moist, 
there  being  yet  no  sun.'''' 

All  this  accords  with  what  I  have  shown  we  might 
expect  as  accompanying  the  close  of  the  so-called  Glacial 
Age.  Dense  clouds  covered  the  sky,  shutting  out  the 
light  of  the  sun  ;  perpetual  rains  and  storms  fell ;  the 
world  was  cold  and  damp,  muddy  and  miserable  ;  the 
people  were  wanderers,  despairing  and  hungry.  They 
seem  to  have  come  from  an  eastern  land.     We  are  told  : 

"Tulan  was  a  much  colder  climate  than  the  happy 
eastern  land  they  had  left." 

Many  generations  seem  to  have  grown  up  and  perished 
under  the  sunless  skies,  "waiting  for  the  return  of  the 
light"  ;  for  the  "  Popul  Yuh  "  tells  us  that  "here  also  the 
language  of  all  the  families  was  confused,  so  that  no  one 
of  the  first  four  men  could  any  longer  understand  the 
speech  of  the  others." 

That  is  to  say,  separation  and  isolation  into  rude 
tribes  had  made  their  tongues  unintelligible  to  one  an- 
other. 

This  shows  that  many,  many  years — it  may  be  cent- 
uries— must  have  elapsed  before  that  vast  volume  of 
moisture,  earned  up  by  evaporation,  was  able  to  fall 
11 


218  THE  LEGENDS. 

back  in  snow  and  rain  to  the  land  and  sea,  and  allow 
the  sun  to  shine  through  "the  blanket  of  the  dark." 
Starvation  encountered  the  scattered  fragments  of  man- 
kind. 

And  in  these  same  Quiche  legends  of  Central  America 
Ave  are  told  : 

"  The  persons  of  the  godhead  were  enveloped  in  the 
darhiess  which  enshrouded  a  desolated  icorld."  * 

They  counseled  together,  and  created  four  men  of 
white  and  yellow  maize  (the  white  and  yellow  races  ?). 
It  was  still  darh ;  for  they  had  no  light  but  the  light  of 
the  morning-star.      They  came  to  Tulan, 

And  the  Abbe  Brasseur  de  Bourbourg  gives  further 
details  of  the  Quiche  legends  : 

"  Now,  behold  our  ancients  and  our  fathers  were  made 
lords,  and  had  their  dawn.  Behold  we  will  relate  also 
the  rising  of  the  sun,  the  moon,  and  the  stars  !  Great  was 
their  joy  when  they  saw  the  morning-star,  which  came 
out  first,  with  its  resplendent  face  before  the  sun.  At  last 
the  sun  itself  began  to  come  forth  ;  the  animals,  small  and 
great,  were  in  joy  ;  they  rose  from  the  water-courses  and 
ravines,  and  stood  on  the  mountain-tops,  with  their  heads 
toward  where  the  sun  was  coming.  An  innumerable 
crowd  of  people  were  there,  and  the  dawn  cast  light  on 
all  these  people  at  once.  At  last  the  face  of  the  ground 
icas  dried  by  the  sun :  like  a  man  the  sun  showed  him- 
self, and  his  presence  warmed  and  dried  the  surface  of 
the  ground.  Before  the  sun  appeared,  muddi/  and  wet 
was  the  surface  of  the  ground,  and  it  was  befoi'e  the  sun 
appeared,  and  then  only  the  sun  rose  like  a  man.  J^ut  his 
heat  had  no  strength,  and  he  did  but  s/ww  himself  tchen 
he  rose  /  he  only  remained  like  "  (an  image  in)  "  a  mirror  ; 
and  it  is  not,  indeed,  the  same  sun  that  appears  now,  they 
say,  in  the  stories."  f 

*  "  North  Americans  of  Antiquity,"  p.  214. 
f  Tylor's  "  Early  History  of  Mankind,"  p.  308. 


LEGENDS   OF  THE  AGE  OF  DARKNESS.  219 

How  wonderfully  does  all  this  aecord  with  what  we 
have  shown  would  follow  from  the  earth's  contact  with  a 
comet ! 

The  earth  is  wet  and  covered  with  mud,  the  clay  ;  the 
sun  is  long  absent  ;  at  last  he  returns  ;  he  dries  the  mud, 
but  his  face  is  still  covered  with  the  remnants  of  the  great 
cloud-belt ;  "his  heat  has  no  strength";  he  shows  himself 
only  in  glimpses;  he  shines  through  the  fogs  like  an  image 
in  a  mirror;  he  is  not  like  the  great  blazing  orb  we  see  now. 

But  the  sun,  when  it  did  ajipear  in  all  its  glory,  must 
have  been  a  terrible  yet  welcome  sight  to  those  who  had 
not  looked  upon  him  for  many  years.  We  read  in  the 
legends  of  the  Thlinkeets  of  British  Columbia,  after  nar- 
rating that  the  world  was  once  "  dark,  damp,  and  chaotic," 
full  of  water,  with  no  sun,  moon,  or  stars,  how  these 
luminaries  were  restored.  The  great  hero-god  of  the 
race,  Yehl,  got  hold  of  three  mysterious  boxes,  and, 
wrenching  the  lids  off,  let  out  the  sun,  moon,  and  stars. 

"When  he  set  up  the  blazing  light"  (of  the  sun)  "in 
heaven,  the  people  that  saw  it  were  at  first  afraid.  Many 
hid  themselves  in  the  mountains,  and  in  the  forests,  and 
even  in  the  water,  and  were  changed  into  the  various 
kinds  of  animals  that  frequent  these  places."  * 

Says  James  Geikie  : 

"Nor  can  we  form  any  proper  conception  of  how  long 
a  time  was  needed  to  bring  about  that  other  change  of 
climate,  under  the  influence  of  which,  slowly  and  imper- 
ceptibly, this  immense  sheet  of  frost  melted  away  from 
the  lowlands  and  retired  to  the  mountain  recesses.  We 
must  allow  that  long  ages  elapsed  before  the  warmth 
became  such  as  to  induce  plants  and  animals  to  clothe 
and  people  the  land.  How  vast  a  time,  also,  must  have 
passed  away  ere  the  warmth  reached  its  climax  ! "  f 

*  Bancroft's  "  Kative  Races,"  vol.  iii,  p.  100. 
f  "The  Great  Ice  Age,"  p.  184. 


220 


THE  LEGENDS. 


And  all  this  time  the  rain  fell.  There  could  be  no 
return  of  the  sun  until  all  the  mass  of  moisture  sucked  up 
by  the  comet's  heat  had  been  condensed  into  water,  and 
falling  on  the  earth  had  found  its  way  back  to  the  ocean  ; 
and  this  process  had  to  be  repeated  many  times.  It  was 
the  age  of  the  great  primeval  rain. 


The  pEiiiEVAL  Storm. 


In  the  Andes,  Humboldt  tells  us  of  a  somewhat  simi- 
lar state  of  facts  : 

"  A  thick  mist  during  a  particular  season  obscures  the 
firmament  for  many  months.  Not  a  planet,  not  the  most 
brilliant  stars  of  the  southern  hemisphere — Canopus,  the 


LEGEXDS   OF  THE  AGE  OF  DARKNESS.  221 

Southern  Cross,  nor  the  feet  of  Centaur — are  visible.  It 
is  frequently  almost  impossible  to  discover  the  position  of 
the  moon.  If  by  chance  the  outlines  of  the  sun's  disk  be 
visible  during  the  day,  it  appears  devoid  of  rays." 

Says  Croll  : 

"  "We  have  seen  that  the  accumulation  of  snow  and  ice 
on  the  ground,  resulting  from  the  long  and  cold  winters, 
tended  to  cool  the  air  and  produce  fogs,  Avhich  cut  off  the 
sun's  rays."  * 

The  same  writer  says  : 

"  Snow  and  ice  lower  the  temperature  by  chilling  the 
air  and  condensing  the  rays  into  thick  fogs.  The  great 
strength  of  the  sun's  rays  during  summer,  due  to  his 
nearness  at  that  season,  would,  in  the  first  place,  tend  to 
produce  an  increased  amount  of  evaporation.  But  the 
presence  of  snow-clad  mountains  and  an  icy  sea  would 
chill  the  atmosphere  and  condense  the  vapors  into  thick 
fogs.  The  thick  fogs  and  cloudy  sky  would  effectually 
prevent  the  sun's  rays  from  reaching  the  earth,  and  the 
snow,  in  consequence,  would  remain  unmelted  during  the 
entire  summer.  In  fact,  we  have  this  very  condition  of 
things  exemplified  in  some  of  the  islands  of  the  Southern 
Ocean  at  the  present  day.  Sandwich  Land,  which  is  in 
the  same  parallel  of  latitude  as  the  north  of  Scotland,  is 
covered  with  ice  and  snow  the  entire  summer  ;  and  in  the 
Island  of  South  Georgia,  which  is  in  the  same  parallel  as 
the  center  of  England,  the  perpetual  snow  descends  to  the 
very  sea-beach.  The  following  is  Captain  Cook's  descrip- 
tion of  this  dismal  place  :  '  We  thought  it  very  extraor- 
dinary,' he  says,  '  that  an  island  between  the  latitudes 
of  54°  and  55°  should,  in  the  very  height  of  summer,  be 
almost  wholly  covered  with  frozen  snow,  in  some  places 
many  fathoms  deep.  .  .  .  The  head  of  the  bay  was  ter- 
minated by  ice-cliffs  of  considerable  height,  pieces  of 
which  were  continually  breaking  off,  which  made  a  noise 
like  cannon.  Nor  were  the  interior  parts  of  the  country 
less  horrible.    The  savage  rocks  raised  their  lofty  summits 

*  "  Climate  aud  Time,"  p.  75. 


2:22  THE  LEGENDS. 

till  lost  in  the  clouds,  and  valleys  were  covered  with  seem- 
ingly perpetual  snow.  Not  a  tree  nor  a  shrub  of  any  size 
was  to  be  seen.'  "  * 

I  return  to  the  legends. 

The  Gallinomeros  of  Central  California  also  recollect 
the  day  of  darkness  and  the  return  of  the  sun  : 

"  In  the  beginning  they  say  there  was  no  light,  htit  a 
thick  darkness  covered  cdl  the  earth.  Man  stumbled 
blindly  against  man  and  against  the  animals,  the  birds 
clashed  together  in  the  air,  and  confusion  reigned  every- 
where. The  Hawk  happening  by  chance  to  fly  into  the 
face  of  the  Coyote,  there  followed  mutual  apologies,  and 
afterward  a  long  discussion  on  the  emergency  of  the  situ- 
ation. Determined  to  make  some  effort  toward  abating 
the  public  evil,  the  two  set  about  a  remedy.  The  Coyote 
gathered  a  great  heap  of  tules  "  (rushes),  "  rolled  them 
into  a  ball,  and  gave  it  to  the  Hawk,  together  with  som.e 
pieces  of  flint.  Gathering  all  together  as  well  as  he  could, 
the  Hawk  flew  straight  up  into  the  sky,  where  he  struck 
fire  with  the  flints,  lit  his  ball  of  reeds,  and  left  it  there 
whirling  along  all  in  a  fierce  red  glow  as  it  continues  to 
the  present  ;  for  it  is  the  sun.  In  the  same  way  the  moon 
w\^s  made,  but  as  the  tules  of  Avhich  it  was  constructed 
were  rather  damp,  its  light  has  always  been  somewhat 
uncertain  and  feeble."  f 

The  Algonquins  believed  in  a  world,  an  earth,  "  ante- 
rior to  this  of  ours,  but  one  loithout  light  or  human  in- 
habitants. A  lake  burst  its  bounds  and  submerged  it 
wholly." 

This  reminds  us  of  the  Welsh  legend,  and  the  burst- 
ing of  the  lake  Llion  (see  page  135,  ante). 

The  ancient  world  w^as  united  in  believing  in  great 
cycles  of  time  terminating  in  terrible  catastrophes  : 

*  Captain  Cook's  "Second  Voyage,"  vol.  ii,  pp.  232-235;  "  C'imate 
and  Time,"  Croll,  pp.  60,  61. 

f  Powers's  Pomo  MS.,  Bancroft's  "  Native  Races,"  vol.  i!i,  p.  86. 


LEGENDS   OF  THE  AGE  OF  DARKNESS.         223 

"  Hence  arose  the  belief  in  Epochs  of  Nature,  elabo- 
rated by  ancient  philosophers  into  the  Cycles  of  the  Stoics, 
the  great  Days  of  Brahm,  long  periods  of  time  rounding 
off  by  sweeping  destructions,  the  Cataclysms  and  Ekpy- 
rauses  of  the  universe.  Some  thought  in  these  all  things 
perished,  others  that  a  few  survived.  .  .  .  For  instance, 
Epictetus  favors  the  opinion  that  at  the  solstices  of  the 
great  year  not  only  all  human  beings,  but  even  the  gods, 
are  annihilated  ;  and  si^eculates  whether  at  such  times 
Jove  feels  lonely.*  Macrobius,  so  far  from  agreeing  with 
him,  explains  the  great  antiquity  of  Egyptian  civilization 
by  the  hypothesis  that  that  country  is  so  happily  situated 
between  the  pole  and  the  equator,  as  to  escape  both  the 
deluge  and  conflagration  of  the  great  cycle."  f 

In  the  Babylonian  Genesis  tablets  we  have  the  same 
references  to  the  man  or  people  who,  after  the  great  dis- 
aster, divided  the  heavens  into  constellations,  and  regu- 
lated, that  is,  discovered  and  revealed,  their  movements. 
In  the  Fifth  Tablet  of  the  Creation  Legend  |  we  read  : 

"1.  It  was  delightful  all  that  was  fixed  by  the  great  gods. 

2.  Stars,  their  aj)pearance  (in  figures)  of  animals  he  ar- 

ranged. 

3.  To  fix  the  year  through  the  observation  of  their  con- 

stellations, 

4.  Twelve  months  or  signs  of  stars  in  three  rows  he 

arranged, 

5.  From  the  day  when  the  year  commences  unto  the 

close. 

6.  He   marked   the   positions   of   the   wandering   stars 

to  shine  in  their  courses, 

7.  That  they  may  not  do  injury,  and  may  not  trouble 

any  one." 

That  is  to  say,  the  civilized  race  that  followed  the 
great  cataclysm,  with  whom  the  history  of  the  event  was 

*  "  Discourses,"  book  iii,  chapter  xiii. 

f  Bi'inton's  "  Myths  of  the  New  World,"  p.  215. 

X  Proctor's  "  Pleasant  Ways,"  p.  393. 


224  THE  LEGEXDS. 

yet  fresh,  and  who  were  impressed  with  all  its  horrors, 
and  who  knew  well  the  tenure  of  danger  and  terror  on 
which  they  held  all  the  blessings  of  the  world,  turned 
their  attention  to  the  study  of  the  heavenly  bodies,  and 
sought  to  understand  the  source  of  the  calamity  which 
had  so  recently  overwhelmed  the  world.  Hence  they 
"  marked,"  as  far  as  they  were  able,  "  the  positions  of  the 
'  comets,'  "  "  that  they  might  not  "  again  "  do  injury,  and 
not  trouble  any  one."  The  word  here  given  is  JVibir, 
which  ]Mr.  Smith  says  does  not  mean  planets,  and,  in  the 
above  account,  N^ibir  is  contradistinguished  from  the 
stars  ;  they  have  already  been  arranged  in  constellations  ; 
hence  it  can  only  mean  comets. 

And  the  tablet  proceeds,  with  distinct  references  to  the 
Age  of  Darkness  : 

"8.  The  positions  of  the  gods  Bel  and  Ilea  he  fixed  with 
him, 
9.  And   he   opened  the    great  gates    in    the   darhiess 
shrouded. 

10.  The  fastenings  were  strong  on  the  left  and  right. 

11.  In  its  mass,  (i.  e.,  the  lower  chaos,)  he  made  a  boiling. 

12.  The  god  Uru  (the  moon)  he  caused  to  rise  out,  the 

night  he  overshadowed, 

13.  To  fix  it   also  for  the  light  of   the  night  until  the 

shining  of  the  day. 

14.  That   the   month   might  not  be  broken,  and  in  its 

amount  be  regular, 

15.  At  the  beginning  of  the  month,  at  the  rising  of  the 

night, 

16.  His  (the  sun's)  horns  are  breaking  through  to  shine 

on  the  heavens. 

17.  On  the  seventh  day  to  a  circle  he  begins  to  sicell, 

18.  And  stretches  toward  the  dawn  further, 

19.  When  the  god  Shamas,  (the  sun,)  in  the  horizon  of 

heaven,  in  the  east, 

20.  .  .  .  formed  beautifully  and  .  .  . 

21.  .  .  .  to  the  orbit  Shamas  was  perfected." 


LEGENDS   OF  THE  AGE  OF  DARKNESS.  225 

Here  the  tablet  becomes  illegible.  The  meaning, 
howevei',  seems  plain  : 

Although  to  left  and  right,  to  east  and  west,  the  dark- 
ness was  fastened  firm,  was  dense,  yet  "the  gi-eat  gods 
opened  the  great  gates  in  the  darkness,"  and  let  the  light 
through.  First,  the  moon  appeared,  through  a  "  boiling," 
or  breaking  up  of  the  clouds,  so  that  now  men  were  able 
to  once  more  count  time  by  the  movements  of  the  moon. 
On  the  seventh  day,  Shamas,  the  sun,  appeared  ;  first,  his 
horns,  his  beams,  broke  through  the  darkness  imperfectly  ; 
then  he  swells  to  a  circle,  and  comes  nearer  and  nearer  to 
perfect  dawn  ;  at  last  he  appeared  on  the  hoi'izon,  in  the 
east,  formed  beautifully,  and  his  orbit  was  perfected ; 
i,  e.,  his  orbit  could  be  traced  continuously  through  the 
clearing  heavens. 

But  how  did  the  human  race  fare  in  this  miserable  time? 

In  his  magnificent  poem  "  Darkness,"  Byron  has  im- 
agined such  a  blind  and  darkling  world  as  these  legends 
depict  ;  and  he  has  imagined,  too,  the  hunger,  and  the 
desolation,  and  the  degradation  of  the  time. 

We  are  not  to  despise  the  imagination.  There  never 
was  yet  a  great  thought  that  had  not  wings  to  it  ;  there 
never  was  yet  a  great  mind  that  did  not  survey  things 
from  above  the  mountain-tops. 

If  Bacon  built  the  causeway  over  which  modern  sci- 
ence has  advanced,  it  was  because,  mounting  on  the  pin- 
ions of  his  magnificent  imagination,  he  saw  that  poor 
struggling  mankind  needed  such  a  pathway  ;  his  heart 
embraced  humanity  even  as  his  brain  embraced  the  uni- 
verse. 

The  river  which  is  a  boundary  to  the  rabbit,  is  but  a 
landmark  to  the  eagle.  Let  not  the  gnawers  of  the 
world,  the  rodentia,  despise  the  winged  creatures  of  the 
upper  air. 


226  THE  LEGENDS. 

Byron  saw  what  the  effects  of  the  absence  of  the  sun- 
light would  necessarily  be  upon  the  world,  and  that  which 
he  prefigured  the  legends  of  mankind  tell  us  actually 
came  to  pass,  in  the  dark  days  that  followed  the  Drift. 

He  says  : 

"Morn  came,  and  went — and  came,  and  brought  no  day, 
And  men  forgot  their  passions  in  the  dread 
Of  this  their  desolation,  and  all  hearts 
Were  chilled  into  a  selfish  prayer  for  light.  .  .  . 
A  fearful  hope  was  all  the  woi'ld  contained  ; 
Forests  were  set  on  fire — but  hour  by  hour 
They  fell  and  faded, — and  the  crackling  trunks 
Extinguished  with  a  crash, — and  all  was  black. 
The  brows  of  men  by  the  despairing  light 
AYore  an  vmearthly  aspect,  as  by  fits 
The  flashes  fell  upon  them  ;  some  lay  down 
And  hid  their  eyes  and  wept  ;  and  some  did  rest 
Their  chins  upon  their  clinched  hands  and  smiled ; 
And  others  hurried  to  and  fro,  and  fed 
Their  funeral  jDiles  with  fuel,  and  looked  up 
With  mad  disquietude  on  the  dull  sky. 
The  pall  of  a  past  world  ;  and  then  again 
With  curses  cast  them  down  upon  the  dust, 
And  gnashed  their  teeth  and  howled.  .  .  . 
And  War,  which  for  a  moment  was  no  more, 
Did  glut  himself  again — a  meal  was  bought 
With  blood,  and  each  sat  sullenly  apart. 
Gorging  himself  in  gloom,  .  .  .  and  the  i:)ang 
Of  famine  fed  upon  all  entrails  ; — men 
Died,  and  their  bones  were  tombless  as  their  flesh  ; 
The  meager  by  the  meager  were  devoured, 
Even  dogs  assailed  their  mastei's." 

How  graphic,  how  dramatic,  how  realistic  is  this  pict- 
ure !     And  how  true  ! 

For  the  legends  show  us  that  when,  at  last,  the  stones 
and  clay  had  ceased  to  fall,  and  the  fire  had  exhausted 
itself,  and  the  remnant  of  mankind  were  able  to  dig  their 
way  out,  to  what  an  awful  wreck  of  nature  did  they  return. 


LEGENDS   OF  THE  AGE  OF  DARKNESS.         227 

Instead  of  the  fair  face  of  the  -world,  as  they  had 
known  it,  bright  with  sunlight,  green  with  the  magnifi- 
cent foliage  of  the  forest,  or  the  gentle  verdure  of  the 
plain,  they  go  forth  ujDon  a  wasted,  an  unknown  land, 
covered  with  oceans  of  mud  and  stones  ;  the  very  face 
of  the  country  changed — lakes,  rivers,  hills,  all  swept 
away  and  lost.  They  wander,  breathing  a  foul  and  sick- 
ening atmosphere,  under  the  shadow  of  an  awful  dark- 
ness, a  darkness  which  knows  no  morning,  no  stars,  no 
moon  ;  a  darkness  palpable  and  visible,  lighted  only  by 
electrical  discharges  from  the  abyss  of  clouds,  W'ith  such 
roars  of  thunder  as  we,  in  this  day  of  harmonious  nature, 
can  form  no  conception  of.  It  is,  indeed,  "chaos  and 
ancient  night."  All  the  forces  of  nature  are  there,  but 
disorderly,  destructive,  battling  against  each  other,  and 
multiplied  a  thousand-fold  in  power  ;  the  winds  are  cy- 
clones, magnetism  is  gigantic,  electricity  is  appalling. 

The  woi-ld  is  more  desolate  than  the  caves  from  which 
they  have  escaped.  The  forests  are  gone  ;  the  fruit-trees 
are  swept  away  ;  the  beasts  of  the  chase  have  perished  ; 
the  domestic  animals,  gentle  ministers  to  man,  have  dis- 
appeared ;  the  cultivated  fields  are  buried  deep  in  drifts 
of  mud  and  gravel ;  the  peoj^le  stagger  in  the  darkness 
against  each  other  ;  they  fall  into  the  chasms  of  the 
earth  ;  within  them  are  the  two  great  oppressors  of  hu- 
manity, hunger  and  terror  ;  hunger  that  knows  not 
where  to  turn  ;  fear  that  shrinks  before  the  whirling 
blasts,  the  rolling  thunder,  the  shocks  of  blinding  light- 
ning ;  that  knows  not  what  moment  the  heavens  may 
again  open  and  rain  fire  and  stones  and  dust  upon  them. 

God  has  withdrawn  his  face  ;  his  children  are  desert- 
ed ;  all  the  kindly  adjustments  of  generous  Nature  ai'e 
gone.  God  has  left  man  in  the  midst  of  a  material  world 
without  law  ;  he  is  a  wreck,  a  fragment,  a  lost  particle, 


228  THE  LEGENDS. 

in  the  midst  of  an  illimitable  and  endless  warfare  of 
giants. 

Some  lie  down  to  die,  hopeless,  cursing  their  helpless 
gods  ;  some  die  by  their  own  hands  ;  some  gather  around 
the  fires  of  volcanoes  for  warmth  and  light — stars  that 
attract  them  from  afar  off ;  some  feast  on  such  decaying 
remnants  of  the  great  animals  as  they  may  find  projecting 
above  the  debris,  running  to  them,  as  we  shall  see,  with 
outcries,  and  fighting  over  the  fragments. 

The  references  to  the  worship  of  "  the  morning  star," 
which  occur  in  the  legend,  seem  to  relate  to  some  great 
volcano  in  the  East,  which  alone  gave  light  when  all  the 
world  was  lost  in  darkness.  As  Byron  says,  in  his  great 
poem,  "  Darkness  "  : 

"  And  they  did  live  by  watch-fires — and  the  thrones. 
The  palaces  of  crowned  kings — the  huts, 
The  habitations  of  all  things  which  dwell, 
Were  burnt  for  beacons  ;  cities  were  consumed. 
And  men  were  gathered  round  their  blazing  homes 
To  look  once  more  into  each  others  face  ; 
Happy  were  they  who  dicelt  loithin  the  eye 
Of  the  volcanoes  and  their  mountain-torch.'''' 

In  this  pitiable  state  were  once  the  ancestors  of  all 
mankind. 

If  you  doubt  it,  reader,  peruse  agaui  the  foregoing 
legends,  and  then  turn  to  the  following  Central  American 
prayer,  the  prayer  of  the  Aztecs,  already  referred  to  on 
page  186,  ante,  addressed  to  the  god  Tezcatlipoca,  himself 
represented  as  a  flying  or  winged  serpent,  perchance  the 
comet  : 

"  Is  it  possible  that  this  lash  and  chastisement  are  not 
given  for  our  correction  and  amendment,  but  only  for  our 
total  destruction  and  overthrow  ;  that  the  sun  will  never 
more  shine  upon  us,  but  that  tee  must  remain  in  lyerpetual 
darJcness  .^  ...  It  is  a  sore  thing  to  tell  how  we  are  all  in 


LEGENDS   OF  THE  AGE  OF  DARKNESS.         229 

darJvness.  .  .  .  O  Lord,  .  .  .  make  an  end  of  this  smoke 
and  fog.  Quench  also  the  burning  and  destroying  fire 
of  thine  anger  ;  let  serenity  come  and  clearness,''''  (light)  ; 
"  let  the  small  birds  of  thy  people  begin  to  sing  and  ap- 
proach the  sun.'''' 

There  is  still  another  Aztec  prayer,  addressed  to  the 
same  deity,  equally  able,  sublime,  and  pathetic,  which  it 
seems  to  me  may  have  been  uttered  when  the  people  had 
left  their  hiding-place,  when  the  conflagration  had  passed^ 
but  while  darkness  still  covered  the  earth,  before  vegeta- 
tion had  returned,  and  while  crops  of  grain  as  yet  were 
not.  There  are  a  few  words  in  it  that  do  not  answer  to 
this  interpretation,  where  it  refers  to  those  "  people  who 
have  something  "  ;  but  there  may  have  been  comparative 
differences  of  condition  even  in  the  universal  poverty  ;  or 
these  words  may  have  been  an  interpolation  of  later  days. 
The  prayer  is  as  follows  : 

"  O  our  Lord,  protector  most  strong  and  compassion- 
ate, invisible  and  impalpable,  thou  art  the  giver  of  life  ; 
lord  of  all,  and  lord  of  battles.  I  present  myself  here  be- 
fore thee  to  say  some  few  Avords  concerning  the  need  of 
the  poor  people  of  none  estate  or  intelligence.  When 
they  lie  down  at  night  they  have  nothing,  nor  when  they 
rise  up  in  the  morning  ;  the  darkness  and  the  light  pass 
alike  in  great  poverty.  Know,  O  Lord,  that  thy  subjects 
and  servants  suffer  a  sore  poverty  that  can  not  be  told  of 
more  than  that  it  is  a  sore  poverty  and  desolateness.  The 
men  have  no  garments,  nor  the  women,  to  cover  them- 
selves with,  but  only  certain  rags  rent  in  every  part,  that 
allow  the  air  and  the  cold  to  pass  everywhere, 

"  With  great  toil  and  weariness  they  scrape  together 
enough  for  each  day,  going  by  mountain  and  loilderness 
seeking  their  food  ;  so  faint  and  enfeebled  are  they  that 
their  bowels  cleave  to  their  ribs,  and  all  their  body  re- 
echoes with  hollowness,  and  they  walk  as  people  affright- 
ed, the  face  and  body  in  likeness  of  death.  If  they  be 
merchants,  they  now  sell  only  cakes  of  salt  and  broken 


230  THE  LEGENDS. 

pepper  ;  the  people  that  have  something  despise  their 
wares,  so  that  they  go  out  to  sell  from  door  to  door,  and 
from  house  to  house  ;  and  when  they  sell  nothing  they 
sit  down  sadly  by  some  fence  or  wall,  or  in  some  corner, 
licking  their  lips  and  gnawing  the  nails  of  their  hands  for 
the  hunger  that  is  in  them  ;  they  look  on  the  one  side  and 
on  the  other  at  the  mouths  of  those  that  pass  by,  hoping 
perad venture  that  one  may  speak  some  word  to  them. 

"  O  compassionate  God,  the  bed  on  which  they  lie 
down  is  not  a  thing  to  rest  upon,  but  to  endure  torment 
in  ;  they  draw  a  rag  over  them  at  night,  and  so  sleep  ; 
there  they  throw  down  their  bodies,  and  the  bodies  of 
children  that  thou  hast  given  them.  For  the  misery  that 
they  grow  up  in,  for  the  filth  of  their  food,  for  the  lack 
of  covering,  their  faces  are  yellow,  and  all  their  bodies  of 
the  color  of  earth.  They  tremble  ioit/i  cold,  and  for  lean- 
ness they  stagger  in  walking.  They  go  weeping  and  sigh- 
ing, and  full  of  sadness,  and  all  misfortunes  are  joined  to 
them  ;  tliough  they  stay  by  afire,  they  find  little  heaty  * 

The  prayer  continues  in  the  same  strain,  supplicating 
God  to  give  the  people  "  some  days  of  prosperity  and 
tranquillity,  so  that  they  may  sleep  and  know  repose  "  ; 
it  concludes  : 

"  If  thou  answerest  my  petition  it  will  be  only  of  thy 
liberality  and  magnificence,  for  no  one  is  worthy  to  re- 
ceive thy  bounty  for  any  merit  of  his,  but  only  through 
thy  grace.  Search  below  the  duny-hills  and  in  the  mount- 
ains for  thy  servants,  friends,  and  acquaintance,  and  raise 
them  to  riches  and  dignities."  .  .  . 

"  Where  am  I  ?  Lo,  I  speak  with  thee,  O  King  ;  well 
do  I  know  that  I  stand  in  an  eminent  place,  and  that  I 
talk  with  one  of  great  majesty,  before  whose  presence 
flows  a  I'iver  through  a  chasm,  a  gulf  sheer  down  of 
awful  depth  ;  this,  also,  is  a  slippery  place,  whence  many 
precipitate  themselves,  for  there  shall  not  be  found  one 
without  error  before  thy  majesty.  I  myself,  a  man  of 
little  understanding  and  lacking  speech,  dare  to  address 

*  Biuicioft'.s  "Xative  Races,"  vol.  iii,  p.  204. 


LEGEXDS   OF  THE  AGE  OF  DARKNESS.         231 

my  words  to  tlice  ;  I  put  myself  in  peril  of  falling  into 
the  gorge  and  cavern  of  this  river.  I,  Lord,  have  come 
to  take  with  my  hands,  blindness  to  mine  eyes,  rottenness 
and  shriveling  to  my  members,  poverty  and  affliction  to 
my  body  ;  for  my  meanness  and  rudeness  this  it  is  that 
I  merit  to  receive.  Live  and  rule  for  ever  in  all  quietness 
and  tranquillity,  O  thou  that  art  our  lord,  our  shelter,  our 
protector,  most  compassionate,  most  pitiful,  invisible,  im- 
palpable." 

It  is  true  that  much  of  all  this  would  apply  to  any 
great  period  of  famine,  but  it  apj^ears  that  these  events 
occurred  when  there  was  great  cold  in  the  country,  when 
the  people  gathered  around  fires  and  could  not  get  warm, 
a  remarkable  state  of  things  in  a  country  possessing  as 
tropical  a  climate  as  Mexico.  Moreover,  these  people 
were  wanderers,  "going  by  mountain  and  wilderness," 
seeking  food,  a  whole  nation  of  jooverty-stricken,  home- 
less, wandering  paupers.  And  when  we  recur  to  the  j^art 
where  the  j)riest  tells  the  Lord  to  seek  his  fi'iends  and 
servants  in  the  mountains,  "  beloio  the  chcng-hills,''''  and 
raise  them  to  riches,  it  is  difficult  to  understand  it  other- 
wise than  as  an  allusion  to  those  who  had  been  buried 
imder  the  falling  slime,  clay,  and  stones.  Even  poor  men 
do  not  dwell  under  dung-hills,  nor  are  they  usually  buried 
under  them,  and  it  is  very  possible  that  in  transmission 
from  generation  to  generation  the  original  meaning  was 
lost  sight  of.  I  should  understand  it  to  mean,  "  Go,  O 
Lord,  and  search  and  bring  back  to  life  and  comfort  and 
wealth  the  millions  thou  hast  slaughtered  on  the  mount- 
ains, covering  them  with  hills  of  slime  and  refuse." 

And  when  we  turn  to  the  traditions  of  the  kindred 
and  more  ancient  i-ace,  the  Toltecs,*  we  find  that,  after  the 
fall  of  the  fire  from  heaven,  the  people,  emerging  from  the 

*  "Xoi-th  Aiiiericiuis  of  Antiquity,"  p.  2-10. 


233  THE  LEGEXDS. 

seven  caves,  wandered  one  hundred  and  four  years,  "  suf- 
fering from  nakedness,  hunger,  and  cold,  over  many  lands, 
across  expanses  of  sea.  and  through  untold  hardships," 
precisely  as  narrated  in  the  foregoing  pathetic  prayer. 

It  tells  of  the  migration  of  a  race,  over  the  desolated 
world,  diu'ing  the  Age  of  Darkness.  And  we  will  find 
something,  hereafter,  very  much  like  it,  in  the  Book  of 
Job. 


THE  TRIUMPH  OF  THE  SUN.  233 


CHAPTER  IX. 

THE  TRIUMPH  OF  THE  SUN. 

A  GREAT  solar-myth  underlies  all  the  ancient  mythol- 
ogies. It  commemorates  the  death  and  resurrection  of 
the  sun.  It  signifies  the  destruction  of  the  light  by  the 
clouds,  the  darkness,  and  the  eventual  return  of  the  great 
luminary  of  the  world. 

The  Syrian  Adonis,  the  sun-god,  the  Hebrew  Tam- 
heur,  and  the  Assyrian  Du-Zu,  all  suffered  a  sudden  and 
violent  death,  disappeared  for  a  time  from  the  sight  of 
men,  and  were  at  last  raised  from  the  dead. 

The  myth  is  the  primeval  form  of  the  resurrection. 

All  through  the  Gothic  legends  runs  this  thought — the 
battle  of  the  Light  with  the  Darkness  ;  the  temporary 
death  of  the  Light,  and  its  final  triumph  over  the  grave. 
Sometimes  we  have  but  a  fragment  of  the  story. 

In  the  Saxon  Beowulf  we  have  Grendel,  a  terrible 
monster,  who  comes  to  the  palace-hall  at  midnight,  and 
drags  out  the  sleepers  and  sucks  their  blood.  Beowulf 
assails  him.  A  ghastly  struggle  follows  in  the  darkness. 
Grendel  is  killed.  But  his  fearful  mother,  the  devil's 
dam,  comes  to  avenge  his  death  ;  she  attacks  Beowulf, 
and  is  slain.*  There  comes  a  third  dragon,  which  Beo- 
wulf kills,  but  is  stifled  with  the  breath  of  the  monster  and 
dies,  rejoicing,  however,  that  the  dragon  has  brought  Avith 
him  a  great  treasure  of  gold,  which  will  make  his  people 
rich,  f 

*  Poor,  "Sanskrit  and  Kindred  Literatures,"  p.  315.  f  Ibid. 


234  THE  LEGENDS. 

Hero,  again,  are  the  thi-ee  comets,  the  wolf,  the  snake, 
and  the  dog  of  Ragnarok  ;  the  three  arrows  of  the  Amer- 
ican legends  ;  the  three  monsters  of  Hesiod. 

When  we  turn  to  Egypt  we  find  that  then*  whole  re- 
ligion was  constructed  upon  legends  relating  to  the  ages 
of  fire  and  ice,  and  the  victory  of  the  sun-god  over  the 
evil-one.  AYe  find  everywhere  a  recollection  of  the  days 
of  cloud,  "  when  darkness  dwelt  upon  the  face  of  the 
deep." 

Osiris,  their  great  god,  represented  the  sun  in  his 
darkened  or  nocturnal  or  ruined  condition,  before  the 
coming  of  day.     M.  Mariette-Bey  says  : 

"  Originally,  Osiris  is  the  nocturnal  sun  ;  he  is  the 
primordial  night  of  chaos  ;  he  is  consequently  anterior 
to  Ra,  the  Sun  of  Day."  * 

Mr.  Miller  says  : 

"As  nocturnal  sun,  Osiris  was  also  regarded  as  a  type 
of  the  sun  before  its  first  I'ising,  or  of  the  primordial  night 
of  chaos,  and  as  such,  according  to  M.  Mariette,  his  first 
rising — his  original  birth  to  the  light  under  the  form  of 
Ra — symbolized  the  birth  of  humanity  itself  in  the  person 
of  the  first  man."  f 

M.  F.  Chabas  says  : 

"These  forms  represented  the  same  god  at  different 
hours  of  the  day,  .  .  .  the  nocturnal  sun  and  the  daily 
sun,  which,  succeeding  to  the  first,  dissipated  the  darkness 
on  the  morning  of  each  day,  and  renewed  the  triumph  of 
Horus  over  Set  ;  that  is  to  say,  the  cosmical  victory  which 
determiiied  the  first  rising  of  the  sun — the  organization  of 
the  universe  at  the  commencement  of  time.  Ra  is  the 
god  who,  aiter  having  tnarhed  the  commencement  of  time, 
continues  each  day  to  govern  his  work.  .  .  .  He  succeeds 

*  "Musee  dc  Boulaq,"  etc.,  pp.  20,  21,  100,  101. 
f  Rev.  0.  D.  Miller,  "Solar  Symbolism,"  "American  Antiquarian," 
April,  1881,  p.  219. 


THE   TRIUMPH  OF  THE  SUN:  235 

to  a  primordial  form,  Osiris,  the  nocturnal  sun,  or  better, 
the  sun  before  its  first  rising.''''  * 

"  The  suffering  and  death  of  Osiris,''''  says  Sir  G.  Wil- 
kinson, "  icere  the  great  mystery  of  the  Egyptian  religion, 
and  some  traces  of  it  are  perceptible  among  other  people 
of  antiquity.  His  being  the  divine  goodness,  and  the 
abstract  idea  of  good  ;  his  manifestation  upon  earth,  his 
death  and  resurrection,  and  his  office  as  judge  of  the  dead 
in  a  future  state,  look  like  the  early  revelation  of  a  future 
manifestation  of  the  Deity,  converted  into  a  mythological 
fable."  t 

Osiris — the  sun — had  a  war  with  Seb,  or  Typho,  or 
Typhon,  and  was  killed  in  the  battle  ;  he  was  subse- 
quently restored  to  life,  and  became  the  judge  of  the 
under-Avorld.  J 

Seb,  his  destroyer,  was  a  son  of  Ra,  the  ancient  sun- 
god,  in  the  sense,  perhaps,  that  the  comets,  and  all  other 
planetary  bodies,  were  originally  thrown  out  from  the 
mass  of  the  sun.  Seb,  or  Typho,  Avas  "  the  ^personification 
of  all  evil."    He  was  the  destroyer,  the  enemy,  the  evil-one. 

Isis,  the  consort  of  Osiris,  learns  of  his  death,  slain  by 
the  great  serpent,  and  ransacks  the  world  in  search  of  his 
body.  She  finds  it  mutilated  by  Typhon.  This  is  the 
same  mutilation  which  we  find  elsewhere,  and  which 
covered  the  earth  with  fragments  of  the  sun. 

Isis  was  the  wife  of  Osiris  (the  dead  sun)  and  the 
mother  of  Horus,  the  new  or  returned  sun  ;  she  seems  to 
represent  a  civilized  people  ;  she  taught  the  art  of  culti- 
vating wheat  and  barley,  which  were  always  carried  in 
her  festal  processions. 

When  we    turn  to  the  Greek  legends,  we  shall  find 

*  "  Revue  Arehseologique,"  tome  xxv,  18*73,  p.  393. 

\  Notes  to  Rawlinson's  "  Herodotus,"  American  edition,  vol.  ii,  p.  219. 

X  Murray's  "  Mythology,"  p.  347. 


236  THE  LEGENDS. 

Typhon  described  in  a  manner  that  clearly  identifies  him , 
with  the  destroying  comet.     (See  page  140,  ante.) 

The  entire  religion  of  the  Egyptians  was  based  upon  a 
solar-myth,  and  referred  to  the  great  catastrophe  in  the 
history  of  the  earth  when  the  sun  was  for  a  time  obscured 
in  dense  clouds. 

Speaking  of  the  legend  of  "  the  dying  sun-god,"  Rev. 
O.  D.  Miller  says  : 

"  The  wide  prevalence  of  this  legend,  and  its  extreme 
antiquity,  are  facts  familiar  to  all  Orientalists.  There 
was  the  Egyptian  Osiris,  the  Syrian  Adonis,  the  Hebrew 
Tamheur,  the  Assyrian  Du-Zu,  all  regarded  as  solar 
deities,  yet  as  having  lived  a  mortal  life,  suffered  a  vio- 
lent death,  being  subsequently  raised  from  the  dead.  .  .  . 
How  was  it  possible  to  conceive  the  solar  orb  as  dying  and 
rising  from  the  dead,  if  it  had  not  already  been  taken  for 
a  mortal  being,  as  a  type  of  mortal  man  ?  .  .  .  We  repeat 
the  proposition  :  it  Avas  impossible  to  conceive  the  sun 
as  dying  and  descending  into  hades  until  it  had  been 
assumed  as  a  type  and  representative  of  man,  .  .  .  The 
reign  of  Osiris  in  Egypt,  his  war  with  Typhon,  his  death 
and  resurrection,  were  events  appertaining  to  the  divine 
dynasties.  We  can  only  say,  then,  that  the  origin  of 
these  symbolical  ideas  was  extremely  ancient,  without 
attempting  to  fix  its  chronology." 

But  when  we  realize  the  fact  that  these  ancient  re- 
ligions were  built  upon  the  memory  of  an  event  which 
had  really  happened — an  event  of  awful  significance  to 
the  human  race  —  the  difiiculty  which  perplexed  Mr. 
Miller  and  other  scholars  disappears.  The  sun  had,  ap- 
parently, been  slain  by  an  evil  thing  ;  for  a  long  period 
it  returned  not,  it  was  dead  ;  at  length,  amid  the  re- 
joicings of  the  world,  it  arose  from  the  dead,  and  came  in 
glory  to  rule  mankind. 

And  these  events,  as  I  have  shown,  are  perpetuated  in 
the  sun-worship  which  still  exists  in  the  world  in  many 


THE   TRIUMPH  OF  THE  SUJV.  237 

forms.  Even  the  Cliristian  peasant  of  Europe  still  lifts 
his  hat  to  the  rising  sun. 

The  religion  of  the  Hindoos  was  also  based  on  the 
same  great  eosmical  event. 

Indra  was  the  great  god,  the  sun.  He  has  a  long  and 
dreadful  contest  with  Vritra,  "the  throttling  snake."  In- 
dra is  "  the  cloud-compeller "  ;  he  "  shatters  the  cloud 
with  his  bolt  and  releases  the  imprisoned  waters  "  ;  *  that 
is  to  say,  he  slays  the  snake  Vritra,  the  comet,  and  there- 
after the  rain  pours  doAvn  and  extinguishes  the  flames 
which  consume  the  world. 

"He  goes  in  search  of  the  cattle,  the  clouds,  which 
the  evil  powers  have  driven  away."  f 

That  is  to  say,  as  the  great  heat  disappears,  the  moist- 
ure condenses  and  the  clouds  form.  Doubtless  mankind 
remembered  vividly  that  awful  period  when  no  cloud  ap- 
peared in  the  blazing  heavens  to  intercept  the  terrible  heat. 

"  He  who  fixed  firm  the  moving  earth  ;  who  tranquil- 
lized the  incensed  moimtains  ,•  who  spread  the  spacious 
firmament  ;  who  consolidated  the  heavens — he,  men,  is 
Indra. 

"  He  who  having  destroyed  Ahi  (Vritra,  Typhon,)  set 
free  the  seven  rivers,  who  recovered  the  coics,  (the  clouds,) 
detained  hr/  Bal ;  who  generated  fire  in  the  clouds  ;  who 
is  invincible  in  battle — he,  men,  is  Indra." 

In  the  first  part  of  the  "  Vendidad,"  first  chapter,  the 
author  gives  an  account  of  the  beautiful  land,  the  Aryana 
Vaejo,  which  was  a  land  of  delights,  created  by  Ahura- 
Mazda  (Ormaz).  Then  "an  evil  being,  Angra-Manyus, 
(Ahriman,)  pill  of  death,  created  a  mighty  serpent,  and 
winter,  the  work  of  the  Devas." 

''Te7i  months  of  winter  are  there,  and  two  months  of 
summei'." 


*  Murray's  "  Mythology,"  p.  330.  f  Ibid. 


238  THE  LEGENDS. 

Then  follows  tliis  statement  : 

"  Seven  months  of  summer  are  there  ;  five  months  of 
winter  were  there.  The  latter  are  cold  as  to  water,  cold 
as  to  earth,  cold  as  to  trees.  There  is  the  heart  of  winter  ; 
then  all  around  falls  deep  snow.     There  is  the  worst  of 

evils." 

This  signifies  that  once  the  people  dwelled  in  a  fair 
and  pleasant  land.  The  evil-one  sent  a  mighty  serpent  ; 
the  serpent  brought  a  great  winter  ;  there  were  but  two 
months  of  summer  ;  gradually  this  ameliorated,  until  the 
winter  was  five  months  long  and  the  summer  seven  months 
long.  The  climate  is  still  severe,  cold  and  wet ;  deep 
snows  fell  everywhere.     It  is  an  evil  time. 

The  demonology  of  the  Hindoos  turns  on  the  battles 
between  the  Asuras,  the  irrational  demons  of  the  air,  the 
comets,  and  the  gods  : 

"  They  dwell  beneath  the  three-pronged  root  of  the 
world-mountain,  occupying  the  nadir,  while  their  great 
enemy  Indra,"  (the  sun,)  "the  highest  Buddhist  god,  sits 
upon  the  pinnacle  of  the  mountain,  in  the  zenith.  The 
Meru,  which  stands  between  the  earth  and  the  heavens, 
around  which  the  heavenly  bodies  revolve,  is  the  battle- 
field of  the  Asuras  and  the  Devas."  * 

That  is  to  say,  the  land  Meru — the  same  as  the  island 
Mero  of  the  ancient  Egyptians,  from  which  Egypt  was 
first  colonized  ;  the  Merou  of  the  Greeks,  on  which  the  Me- 
ropes,  the  first  men,  dwelt — was  the  scene  where  this  bat- 
tle between  the  fiends  of  the  air  on  one  side,  and  the 
heavenly  bodies  and  earth  on  the  other,  was  fought. 

The  Asuras  are  painted  as  "  gigantic  opponents  of  the 
gods,  terrible  ogres,  with  bloody  tongues  and  long  tusks, 
eager  to  devour  human  flesh  and  blood,"  f 

And  we  find  the  same  thoughts  underlying  the  myths 

*  "  American  Cyclopa?dia,"  vol.  v,  p.  793.  f  Ibid. 


THE  TRIUMPH  OF  THE  SUN.  .     2?>d 

of  nations  the  most  remote  from  these  great  peoples  of 
antiquity. 

The  Esquimaux  of  Greenland  have  this  myth  : 

"In  the  beginning  were  two  brothers,  one  of  whom 
said,  'There  shall  be  night  and  there  shall  be  day,  and 
men  shall  die,  one  after  another,'  But  the  second  said, 
'  There  shall  be  no  day,  but  only  night  all  the  time,  and 
men  shall  live  for  ever.'  They  had  a  long  struggle,  but 
here  once  more  he  who  loved  darkness  rather  than  light 
was  worsted,  and  the  day  triumphed." 

Here  we  have  the  same  great  battle  between  Light 
and  Darkness.  The  Darkness  proposes  to  be  perpetual ; 
it  says,  "There  shall  be  no  more  day."  After  a  long 
struggle  the  Light  triumphed,  the  sun  retui'ned,  and  the 
earth  was  saved. 

Among  the  Tupis  of  Brazil  we  have  the  same  story  of 
the  battle  of  light  and  darkness.  They  have  a  myth  of 
Timandonar  and  Ariconte  : 

"They  were  brothers,  one  of  fair  complexion,  the  oth- 
er dark.  They  were  constantly  struggling,  and  Ariconte, 
which  means  the  stormy  or  cloudy  day,  came  out  worst."* 

Again  the  myth  reappears ;  this  time  among  the 
!N^orsemen  : 

Balder,  the  bright  sun,  (Baal  ?)  is  slain  by  the  god 
Hodur,  the  blind  one  ;  to  wit,  the  Darkness.  But  Vali, 
Odin's  son,  slew  Hodur,  the  Darkness,  and  avenged  Bal- 
der. Vali  is  the  son  of  Rind — the  rind — the  frozen 
earth.  That  is  to  say,  Darkness  devours  the  sun  ;  frost 
rules  the  earth  ;  Vali,  the  new  sun,  is  born  of  the  frost, 
and  kills  the  Darkness.  It  is  light  again.  Balder  returns 
after  Ragnarok. 

And  Nana,  Balder's  wife,  the  lovely  spring-time,  died 
of  grief  during  Balder's  absence. 

*  Brinton's  "  Myths  of  the  New  World,"  p.  200. 


240  THE  LEGENDS. 

We  have  seen  that  one  of  tlie  great  events  of  tlie 
Egyptian  mythology  was  the  search  made  by  Isis,  the 
wife  of  Osiris,  for  the  dead  sun-god  in  the  dark  nether 
world.  In  the  same  way,  the  search  for  the  dead  Balder 
was  an  important  part  of  the  Norse  myths.  Hermod, 
mounted  on  Odin's  horse,  Sleifner,  the  slippery-one,  (the 
ice  ?)  set  out  to  find  Balder.  He  rode  nine  days  and  nine 
nights  through  deep  valleys,  so  dark  that  he  could  see 
nothing ;  *  at  last  he  reaches  the  barred  gates  of  Hel's 
(death's)  dominions.  There  he  found  Balder,  seated  on  a 
throne  ;  he  told  Hel  that  all  things  in  the  world  were 
grieving  for  the  absence  of  Balder,  the  sun.  At  last, 
after  some  delays  and  obstructions.  Balder  returns,  and 
the  whole  world  rejoices. 

And  what  more  is  needed  to  prove  the  original  unity 
of  the  huTnan  race,  and  the  vast  antiquity  of  these 
legends,  than  the  fact  that  we  find  the  same  story,  and 
almost  the  same  names,  occurring  among  the  white-haired 
races  of  Arctic  Europe,  and  the  dark-skinned  people  of 
Egypt,  Phoenicia,  and  India.  The  demon  Set,  or  Seb,  of 
one,  comes  to  tis  as  the  Surt  of  another  ;  the  Baal  of  one 
is  the  Balder  of  another  ;  Isis  finds  Osiris  ruling  the  under- 
world as  Hermod  found  Balder  on  a  throne  in  Hel,  the 
realm  of  death. 

The  celebration  of  the  May-day,  with  its  ceremonies, 
the  May-pole,  its  May-queen,  etc.,  is  a  survival  of  the 
primeval  thanksgiving  with  which  afflicted  mankind  wel- 
comed the  return  of  the  sun  from  his  long  sleep  of  death. 
In  Norway,!  during  the  middle  ages,  the  whole  scene 
was  represented  in  these  May-day  festivals  :  One  man 
represents  summer,  he  is  clad  in  green  leaves  ;  the  other 
represents  winter  ;  he  is  clad  in  straw,  fit  picture  of  the 

*  "Norse  Mythology,"  p.  288.  f  Ibid.,  p.  291. 


THE  TRIUMPH  OF  THE  SUK  241 

misery  of  the  Drift  Age.  They  have  each  a  large  com- 
pany of  attendants  armed  with  staves  ;  they  fight  with 
each  other  until  winter  (the  age  of  darkness  and  cold) 
is  subdued.  They  pretend  to  pluck  his  eyes  out  and 
throw  him  in  the  water.     Winter  is  slain. 

Here  we  have  the  victory  of  Osiris  over  Seb  ;  of 
Adonis  over  Typhon,  of  Balder  over  Hodur,  of  Indra 
over  Vritra,  of  Timandonar  over  Ariconte,  brought  down 
to  almost  our  own  time.  To  a  late  period,  in  England, 
the  rejoicing  over  the  great  event  survived. 

Says  Horatio  Smith  : 

"  It  was  the  custom,  both  here  and  in  Italy,  for  the 
youth  of  both  sexes  to  proceed  before  daybreak  to  some 
neighboring  wood,  accompanied  with  music  and  horns, 
about  sunrise  to  deck  their  doors  and  windows  with  gar- 
lands, and  to  spend  the  afternoon  dancing  around  the 
May-pole."* 

Stow  tells  us,  in  his  "  Survey  of  London  "  : 

"  Every  man  would  walk  into  the  sweet  meddowes  and 
green  woods,  there  to  rejoice  their  spirits  with  the  beauty 
and  savour  of  sweet  flowers,  and  with  the  harmony  of  birds 
praising  God  in  their  kindes."  f 

Stubbs,  a  Pui-itan  of  Queen  Elizabeth's  days,  describ- 
ing the  May-day  feasts,  says  : 

"  And  then  they  fall  to  banquet  and  feast,  to  leape 
and  dance  about  it,"  (the  May-pole),  "as  the  heathen  peo- 
ple did  at  the  dedication  of  their  idolles,  whereof  this  is  a 
perfect  picture,  or  rather  the  thing  itself."  \ 

Stubbs  was  right  :  the  people  of  England  in  the  year 
15.50  A.  D.,  and  for  years  afterward,  were  celebrating  the 
end  of  the  Drift  Age,  the  disappearance  of  the  darkness 
and  the  victory  of  the  sun. 

*  "Festivals,  Games,"  etc.,  p.  126.  f  Ibid.,  p.  127.  %  Ibid. 

12 


242  THE  LEGEXDS. 

The  myth  of  Hercules  recovering  his  co"^s  from  Cacus 
is  the  same  story  told  in  another  form  : 

A  strange  monster,  Cacus,  (the  comet,)  stole  the  cows 
of  Hercules,  (the  clouds,)  and  dragged  them  backward  by 
their  tails  into  a  cave,  and  vomited  smoke  and  flame  when 
Hercules  attacked  him.  But  Hercules  killed  Cacus  with 
his  unerring  arrows,  and  released  the  cows. 

This  signifies  that  the  comet,  breathing  fire  and  smoke, 
so  rarefied  the  air  that  the  clouds  disappeared  and  there 
followed  an  age  of  awful  heat.  Hercules  smites  the  mon- 
ster with  his  lightnings,  and  electrical  phenomena  on  a 
vast  scale  accompany  the  recondensation  of  the  moisture 
and  the  return  of  the  clouds. 

"  Cacus  is  the  same  as  Yritra  in  Sanskrit,  Azhidihaka 
in  Zend,  Python  in  Greek,  and  the  worm  Fafnir  in  Korse."* 

The  cows  everywhere  are  the  clouds  ;  they  are  white 
and  soft  ;  they  move  in  herds  across  the  fields  of  heaven  ; 
they  give  down  their  milk  in  grateful  rains  and  showers 
to  refresh  the  thirsty  earth. 

"We  find  the  same  event  narrated  in  the  folk-lore  of 
the  modern  Euroi:)ean  nations. 

Says  the  Russian  fairy-tale  : 

"Once  there  was  an  old  couple  who  had  thi-ee  sons." 

Here  we  are  reminded  of  Shem,  Ham,  and  Japheth  ; 
of  Zeus,  Pluto,  and  Neptune  ;  of  Brahma,  Vishnu,  and 
Siva  ;  of  the  three-pronged  trident  of  Poseidon  ;  of  the 
three  roots  of  the  tree  Ygdrasil. 

"  Two  of  them,"  continues  the  legend,  "  had  their  wits 
about  them,  but  the  third,  Ivan,  was  a  simpleton. 

"Now,  in  the  lands  in  which  Ivan  lived  tJiere  was 
never  any  day,  hut  alicays  night.  This  was  a  snake^s 
doings.     Well,  Ivan  undertook  to  kill  the  snake. " 

*  Poor,  "  Sanskrit  Literature,"  p.  236. 


THE  TRIUMPH  OF  THE  SUK  243 

This  is  the  same  old  serpent,  the  dragon,  the  apostate, 
the  leviathan. 

"  Then  came  a  tJi  ird  snake  with  twelve  heads.  Ivan 
killed  it,  and  destroyed  the  heads,  and  immediately  there 
was  a  bright  light  throughout  the  whole  land."  * 

Here  we  have  the  same  series  of  monsters  found  in 
Hesiod,  in  Ragnarok,  and  in  the  legends  of  different  na- 
tions ;  and  the  killing  of  the  third  serpent  is  followed  by 
a  bright  light  throughout  the  whole  land — the  conflagra- 
tion. 

And  the  Russians  have  the  legend  in  another  form. 
They  tell  of  Ilia,  the  peasant,  the  servant  of  Vladimir, 
Fair  Sun.  He  meets  the  brigand  Solovei,  a  monster,  a 
gigantic  bird,  called  the  nightingale  ;  his  claws  extend 
for  seven  versts  over  the  country.  Like  the  dragon  of 
Hesiod,  he  was  full  of  sounds — "  he  roared  like  a  wild 
beast,  howled  like  a  dog,  and  whistled  like  a  nightingale." 
Ilia  hits  him  with  an  arrow  in  the  right  eye,  and  he  tum- 
bles headlong  from  his  lofty  nest  to  the  earth.  The  wife 
of  the  monster  follows  Ilia,  who  has  attached  him  to  his 
saddle,  and  is  dragging  him  away  ;  she  offers  cupfuls  of 
gold,  silver,  and  pearls — an  allusion  probably  to  the  pre- 
cious metals  and  stones  which  were  said  to  have  fallen 
from  the  heavens.  The  Sun  (Vladimir)  welcomes  Ilia, 
and  requests  the  monster  to  howl,  roar,  and  whistle  for 
his  entertainment ;  he  contemptuously  refuses  ;  Ilia  then 
commands  him  and  he  obeys  :  the  noise  is  so  terrible  that 
the  roof  of  the  palace  falls  off,  and  the  coui-tiers  drop 
dead  xoith  fear.  Ilia,  indignant  at  such  an  uproar,  "  cuts 
up  the  monster  into  little  pieces,  which  he  scatters  over 
the  fields''— [the  Drift),  f 

Subsequently  Ilia  Jtides   away  in  a  cave,  unfed  by 


Poor,  "Sanskrit  and  Kindred  Literatures,"  p.  390.  f  Ibid.,  p.  381. 


244  THE  LEGENDS. 

Vladimir — that  is  to  say,  without  the  light  of  the  sun. 
At  length  the  sun  goes  to  seek  him,  expecting  to  find  him 
starved  to  death  ;  but  the  king's  daughter  has  sent  him 
food  every  day  for  three  years,  and  he  comes  out  of  the 
cave  hale  and  hearty,  and  ready  to  fight  again  for  Vladi- 
mir, the  Fair  Sun.*  These  three  years  are  the  three  years 
of  the  "  Fimbul-winter  "  of  the  Norse  legends. 

I  have  already  quoted  (see  chapter  viii,  Part  III,  page 
216,  ante)  the  legends  of  the  Central  American  race,  the 
Quiches,  preserved  in  the  "  Popul  Vuh,"  their  sacred 
book,  in  which  they  describe  the  Age  of  Darkness  and 
cold.  I  quote  again,  from  the  same  work,  a  graphic  and 
wonderful  picture  of  the  return  of  the  sun  : 

"  They  determined  to  leave  Tulan,  and  the  greater 
part  of  them,  under  the  guardianship  and  direction  of  To- 
hil,  set  out  to  see  where  they  would  take  up  their  abode. 
They  continued  on  their  way  amid  the  most  extreme 
hardships  for  the  want  of  food  ;  sustaining  themselves 
at  one  time  upon  the  mere  smell  of  their  staves,  and  by 
imagining  they  were  eating,  when  in  verity  and  truth 
they  ate  nothing.  Their  heart,  indeed,  it  is  again  and 
again  said,  was  almost  broken  by  affliction.  Poor  wander- 
ers !  they  had  a  cruel  way  to  go,  many  forests  to  pierce, 
many  stern  mountains  to  overpass,  and  a  long  passage  to 
make  through  the  sea,  along  the  shingle  and  pebbles  and 
drifted  sand — the  sea  being,  however,  parted  for  their 
passage.  At  last  they  came  to  a  mountain,  that  they 
named  Hacavitz,  after  one  of  their  gods,  and  here  they 
rested — for  here  they  were  by  some  means  given  to  un- 
derstand that  they  should  see  the  sun.  Then,  indeed,  was 
filled  with  an  exceeding  joy  the  heart  of  Balam-Quitze, 
of  Balam-Agab,  of  Mahucutah,  and  of  Iqui-Balam.  It 
seemed  to  them  that  even  the  face  of  the  morning  star 
caught  a  new  and  more  resplendent  brightness. 

"  They  shook  their  incense-pans  and  danced  for  very 
gladness  :  sweet   were   their  tears   in  dancing,  very  hot 

*  Poor,  "Sanskrit  and  Kindi'cd  Literatures,"  p.  S83. 


THE  TRIUMPH  OF  THE  SUN.  245 

their  incense — their  precious  incense.  At  last  the  sun 
commenced  to  advance  ;  the  animals  small  and  great  were 
full  of  delight  ;  they  raised  themselves  to  the  surface  of 
the  water  ;  they  fluttered  in  the  ravines  ;  they  gathered 
at  the  edge  of  the  mountains,  turning  their  heads  together 
toward  that  part  from  which  the  sun  came.  And  the 
lion  and  the  tiger  roared.  And  the  first  bird  that  sang  was 
that  called  the  Queletzu.  All  the  animals  were  beside 
themselves  at  the  sight ;  the  eagle  and  the  kite  beat  their 
wings,  and  every  bird  both  great  and  small.  The  men 
2)rost rated  themselves  on  the  ground,  for  their  hearts  were 
full  to  the  brim."  * 

How  graphic  is  all  this  picture  !  How  life-like  !  Here 
we  have  the  starving  and  wandering  nations,  as  described 
in  the  j^recediug  chapter,  moving  in  the  continual  twi- 
light ;  at  last  the  clouds  grow  brighter,  the  sun  appears  : 
all  nature  rejoices  in  the  unwonted  sight,  and  mankind 
fling  themselves  upon  their  faces  like  "  the  rude  and  sav- 
age man  of  Ind,  kissing  the  base  ground  with  obedient 
breast,"  at  the  first  coming  of  the  glorious  day. 

But  the  clouds  still  are  mighty  ;  rains  and  storms  and 
fogs  battle  with  the  warmth  and  light.  The  "Popul 
Vuh  "  continues  : 

"  And  the  sun  and  the  moon  and  the  stars  were  now  all 
established  "  ;  that  is,  they  now  become  visible,  moving 
in  their  orbits.  "Yet  was  not  the  sun  then  in  the  begin- 
ning the  same  as  now ;  his  heat  wanted  force,  and  he  was 
hut  as  a  reflection  in  a  mirror ;  verily,  say  the  histori- 
ans, not  at  all  the  same  sun  as  that  of  to-day.  Neverthe- 
less, he  dried  up  and  icarmed  the  surface  of  the  earth, 
and  answered  many  good  ends^ 

Could  all  this  have  been  invented  ?  This  people  could 
not  themselves  have  explained  the  meaning  of  their  myth, 
and  yet  it  dove-tails  into  every  fact  revealed  by  our  latest 
science  as  to  the  Drift  Age. 

*  Bancroft's  "  Native  Eaces,"  vol.  iii,  p.  46. 


246  THE  LEGENDS. 

And  then,  the  "  Popul  Yuh  "  tells  us,  the  sun  petrified 
their  gods  :  in  other  words,  the  worship  of  lions,  tigers, 
and  snakes,  represented  by  stone  idols,  gave  way  before 
the  worshij)  of  the  great  luminary  whose  steadily  increas- 
ing beams  were  filling  the  world  with  joy  and  light. 

And  then  the  people  sang  a  hymn,  "  the  song  called 
'  Kamucu,' "  one  of  the  oldest  of  human  compositions,  in 
memory  of  the  millions  who  had  perished  in  the  mighty 
cataclysm  : 

"  We  see  ;  "  they  sang,  "  alas,  we  ruined  ourselves  in 
Tulan  ;  there  lost  toe  many  of  our  kith  and  kin  ;  they  still 
remain  there  !  left  behind  !  We,  indeed,  have  seen  the 
sun,  but  they — now  that  his  golden  light  begins  to  ap- 
pear, where  are  they  ?  " 

That  is  to  say,  we  rejoice,  but  the  mighty  dead  will 
never  rejoice  more. 

And  shortly  after  Balam-Quitze,  Balam-Agab,  Mahu- 
cutah,  and  Iqui-Balam,  the  hero-leaders  of  the  race,  died 
and  were  buried. 

This  battle  between  the  sun  and  the  comet  graduated, 
as  I  have  shown,  into  a  contest  between  light  and  dark- 
ness ;  and,  by  a  natural  transition,  this  became  in  time  the 
unending  struggle  between  the  forces  of  good  and  the 
powers  of  evil — between  God  and  Satan  ;  and  the  imagery 
associated  with  it  has, — strange  to  say, — continued  down 
into  our  own  literature. 

That  great  scholar  and  mighty  jDoet,  John  Milton,  had 
the  legends  of  the  Greeks  and  Romans  and  the  unwritten 
traditions  of  all  peoples  in  his  mind,  when  he  described, 
in  the  sixth  book  of  "Paradise  Lost,"  the  tremendous 
conflict  between  the  angels  of  God  and  the  followers  of 
the  Fallen  One,  the  Apostate,  the  great  serpent,  the  dragon, 
Lucifer,  the  bright-shining,  the  star  of  the  morning,  com- 
ing, like  the  comet,  from  the  north. 


THE  TRIUMPH   OF  THE  SUN.  247 

Milton  did  not  intend  such  a  comparison  ;  but  he  could 
not  tell  the  story  without  his  over-full  mind  recurring  to 
the  imagery  of  the  past.  Hence  we  read  the  following 
description  of  the  comet ;  of  that — 

"  Thunder-cloud  of  nations, 
Wrecking  earth  and  darkening  heaven." 

Milton  tells  us  that  when  God's  troops  went  forth  to 

the  battle — 

"  At  last, 
Far  in  the  horizon,  to  the  north,  appeared 
From  skirt  to  skirt,  a,  fiery  region  stretched, 
In  battailous  aspect,  and  nearer  view 
Bristled  with  upright  beams  innumerable 
Of  rigid  spears,  and  helmets  thronged  and  shields 
Various,  with  boastful  arguments  portrayed, 
The  banded  powers  of  Satan,  hasting  on 
With  furious  expedition.  .  .  . 
High  in  the  midst,  exalted  as  a  god. 
The  apostate,  in  his  siin-brlght  chariot,  sat. 
Idol  of  majesty  divine,  inclosed 
With  flaming  cherubim  and  golden  shields." 

The  comet  represents  the  uprising  of  a  rebellious 
power  against  the  supreme  and  orderly  dominion  of  God. 
The  angel  Abdiel  says  to  Satan  : 

"  Fool !  not  to  think  how  vain 
Against  the  Omnipotent  to  rise  in  arms  ; 
Who  out  of  smallest  things  could  without  end 
Have  raised  incessant  armies  to  defeat 
Thy  folly  ;  or,  with  solitary  hand, 
Reaching  beyond  all  limit,  at  one  blow, 
Unaided,  could  have  finished  thee,  and  whelmed 
Thy  legions  under  darkness." 

The  battle  begins  : 

"  Now  storming  fury  rose, 
And  clamor  such  as  heard  in  heav'n  till  now 
Was  never  ;  arms  on  armor  clashing  brayed 


248  THE  LEGENDS. 

Horrible  discord,  and  the  madding  wheels 
Of  brazen  chariots  raged  ;  dire  was  the  noise 
Of  conflict  ;  overhead  the  dismal  hiss 
Of  fiery  darts  in  Jfamiug  volleys  fleio. 
And,  flying,  vaulted  either  host  -^xXhfire.  .  .  . 
Army  'gainst  army,  numberless  to  raise 
Dreadful  combustion  warring,  and  disturb 
Though  not  destroy,  their  happy  native  seat. 

....  Sometimes  on  firm  ground 
A  standing  fight,  then  soaring  on  main  \cing 
Tormented  all  the  air,  all  air  seemed  then 
Conflicting  fire.'''' 

Michael,  the  archangel,  denounces  Satan  as  an  un- 
known being,  a  stranger  : 

"Author  of  evil,  \inlcnoxt:n  till  thy  revolt, 
Unnamed  in  heaven  .  .  .  how  hast  thou  disturbed 
Heav'n's  blessed  peace,  and  into  nature  brought 
Misery,  uncreated  till  the  crime 
Of  thy  rebellion  !  .  ,  .  But  think  not  here 
To  trouble  holy  rest ;  heav'n  casts  thee  out 
From  all  her  confines  :  heav'n,  the  seat  of  bliss, 
Brooks  not  the  works  of  violence  and  war. 
Hence  then,  and  evil  go  with  thee  along. 
Thy  offspring,  to  the  place  of  evil,  hell, 
Thou  and  thy  wicked  crew  ! " 

But  the  comet  (Satan)  replies  that  it  desires  liberty  to 
go  where  it  pleases  ;  it  refuses  to  submit  its  destructive 
and  erratic  course  to  the  domination  of  the  Supreme 
Good  ;  it  proposes — 

"Here,  however,  to  dwell  free  ; 
If  not  to  reign." 

The  result  of  the  first  day's  struggle  is  a  drawn  battle. 

The  evil  angels  meet  in  a  night  conference,  and  pre- 
pare gunpowder  and  cannon,  with  which  to  overthrow 
God's  armies  ! 

"  Hollow  engines,  long  and  round, 

Thick  rammed,  at  th'  other  bore  with  touch  of  fire 


THE  TRIUMPH  OF  THE  SUN.  249 

Dilated  and  infuriate,  shall  send  forth 

From  far,  with  thundering  noise,  among  our  foes 

kSuch  implements  of  mischief,  as  shall  dash 

To  pieces,  and  overwhelm  whatever  stands 

Adverse." 

Thus  armed,  the  evil  ones  renew  the  fight.     They  fire 
their  cannon: 

"  For  sudden  all  at  once  their  reeds 
Put  forth,  and  to  a  narrow  vent  applied 
With  nicest  touch.     Immediate  in  a  flame, 
But  soon  obscured  with  clouds,  all  heav'n  appeared, 
From  these  deep-throated  engines  belched,  whose  roar 
Emboweled  with  outrageous  noise  the  air, 
And  all  her  entrails  tore,  disgorging  foul 
Their  devilish  glut,  chained  thunder-bolts  and  hail 
Of  iron  globes." 

The  angels  of  God  were  at  first  overwhelmed  by  this 
shower  of  missiles  and  cast  down  ;  but  they  soon  rallied  : 

"  From  their  foundations,  loos'ning  to  and  fro. 
They  plucked  the  seated  hills,  with  all  their  load, 
Rocks,  waters,  woods,  and  by  their  shaggy  tops 
Tjj)lifted  bore  them  in  their  hands." 

The  rebels  seized  the  hills  also  : 

"  So  hills  amid  the  air  encountered  hills, 
Hurled  to  and  fro  with  jaculation  dire. 

....  And  now  all  heaven 
Had  gone  to  wrack,  with  ruin  overspread," 

had  not  the  Almighty  sent  out  his  Son,  the  Messiah,  to 
help  his  sorely  struggling  angels.  The  evil  ones  are  over- 
thrown, overwhelmed,  driven  to  the  edge  of  heaven  : 

"  The  monstrous  sight 
Struck  them  with  horror  backward,  but  far  worse 
Urged  them  behind  ;  headlong  themselves  they  threw 
Down  from  the  verge  of  heav'n  ;  eternal  wrath 
Burnt  after  them  to  the  bottomless  pit.  .  .  . 


250  THE  LEGENDS. 

Nine  days  they  fell :  confounded  Chaos  roared 
And  felt  tenfold  confusion  in  their  fall 
Through  his  wide  anarchy,  so  huge  a  rout 
Encumbered  him  with  ruin." 

Thus  down  into  our  own  times  and  literature  has 
penetrated  a  vivid  picture  of  this  world-old  battle.  We 
see,  as  in  the  legends,  the  temporary  triumph  of  the  dra- 
gon ;  we  see  the  imperiled  sun  obscured  ;  we  see  the  fly- 
ing rocks  filling  the  appalled  air  and  covering  all  things 
with  ruin  ;  we  see  the  dragon  at  last  slain,  and  falling 
down  to  hell  and  chaos  ;  while  the  sun  returns,  and  God 
and  order  reign  once  more  supreme. 

And  thus,  again,  Milton  paints  the  chaos  that  pre- 
cedes restoration  : 

"  On  heav'nly  ground  they  stood  ;  and  from  the  shores 
They  viewed  the  vast  immeasurable  abyss, 
Outrageous  as  a  sea,  dark,  wasteful,  wild, 
Up  from  the  bottom,  turned  by  furious  winds 
And  surging  waves,  as  mountains  to  assault 
Heav'n's  height,  and  with  the  center  mix  the  poles.*' 

But  order,  peace,  love,  and  goodness  follow  this  dark, 
wild  age  of  cold  and  wet  and  chaos  : — the  Night  is  slain, 
and  the  sun  of  God's  mercy  shines  once  more  on  its  ap- 
pointed track  in  the  heavens. 

But  never  again,  they  feel,  shall  the  world  go  back  to 
the  completely  glorious  conditions  of  the  Tertiary  Age, 
the  golden  age  of  the  Eden-land.  The  comet  has 
"  brought  death  into  the  world,  and  all  our  woe."  Man- 
kind has  sustained  its  great,  its  irreparable  "  Fall." 

This  is  the  event  that  lies,  with  mighty  meanings,  at 
the  base  of  all  our  theologies. 


THE  FALL   OF  THE  CLAY  AND    GRAVEL.        251 


CHAPTER  X. 

THE  FALL   OF  TEE  CLA  Y  AND   GEA  VEL. 

I  TRUST  that  the  reader,  who  has  followed  me  thus  far 
in  this  argument,  is  satisfied  that  the  legends  of  mankind 
point  unmistakably  to  the  fact  that  the  earth,  in  some  re- 
mote age — before  the  Polynesians,  Red-men,  Europeans, 
and  Asiatics  had  separated,  or  been  developed  as  varieties 
out  of  one  family — met  with  a  tremendous  catastrophe  ; 
that  a  conflagration  raged  over  parts  of  its  surface  ;  that 
mankind  took  refuge  in  the  caves  of  the  earth,  whence 
they  afterward  emerged  to  wander  for  a  long  time,  in 
great  poverty  and  hardships,  during  a  period  of  darkness  ; 
and  that  finally  this  darkness  dispersed,  and  the  sun  shone 
again  in  the  heavens. 

I  do  not  sec  how  the  reader  can  avoid  these  conclu- 
sions. 

There  are  but  two  alternatives  before  him  :  he  must 
either  suppose  that  all  this  concatenation  of  legends  is 
the  outgrowth  of  a  prodigious  primeval  lie,  or  he  must 
concede  that  it  describes  some  event  which  really  hap- 
pened. 

To  adopt  the  theory  of  a  great  race-lie,  originating  at 
the  beginning  of  human  history,  is  difficult,  inasmuch  as 
these  legends  do  not  tell  the  same  story  in  anything  like 
the  same  way,  as  would  have  been  the  case  had  they  all 
originated  in  the  first  instance  from  the  same  mind.  While 
we  have  the  conflagration  in  some  of  the  legends,  it  has 


252  THE  LEGENDS. 

been  dropped  out  of  others  ;  in  one  it  is  caused  by  the 
sun  ;  in  another  by  the  demon  ;  in  another  by  the  moon  ; 
in  one  Phaeton  produced  it  by  driving  the  sun  out  of  its 
course  ;  while  there  are  a  whole  body  of  legends  in  which 
it  is  the  result  of  catching  the  sun  in  a  noose.  So  with 
the  stories  of  the  cave-life.  In  some,  men  seek  the  caves 
to  escape  the  conflagration  ;  in  others,  their  race  began  in 
the  caves.  In  like  manner  the  age  of  darkness  is  in  some 
cases  produced  by  the  clouds  ;  in  others  by  the  death  of 
the  sun.  Again,  in  tropical  regions  the  myth  turns  upon 
a  period  of  terrible  heat  when  there  were  neither  clouds 
nor  rain  ;  when  some  demon  had  stolen  the  clouds  or 
dragged  them  into  his  cave  ;  while  in  more  northern  re- 
gions the  horrible  age  of  ice  and  cold  and  snow  seems  to 
have  made  the  most  distinct  imj^ression  on  the  memory 
of  mankind.  In  some  of  the  myths  the  comet  is  a  god  ; 
in  others  a  demon  ;  in  others  a  sei'pent  ;  in  others  a  feath- 
ered serpent  ;  in  others  a  dragon  ;  in  others  a  giant  ;  in 
others  a  bird  ;  in  others  a  wolf  ;  in  others  a  dog ;  in  still 
others  a  boar. 

The  legends  coincide  only  in  these  facts  : — the  monster 
in  the  air  ;  the  heat  ;  the  fire  ;  the  cave-life  ;  the  dark- 
ness ;  the  return  of  the  light. 

In  everything  else  they  differ. 

Surely,  a  falsehood,  springing  out  of  one  mind,  would 
have  been  more  consistent  in  its  parts  than  this. 

The  legends  seem  to  represent  the  diverging  memo- 
ries which  separating  races  carried  down  to  j^osterity  of 
the  same  awful  and  impressive  events  :  they  remembered 
them  in  fragments  and  sections,  and  described  them  as  the 
four  blind  men  in  the  Hindoo  story  described  the  ele- 
phant ; — to  one  it  Avas  a  tail,  to  another  a  trunk,  to  another 
a  leg,  to  another  a  body  ; — it  needs  to  put  all  their  stories 
together  to  make  a  consistent  Avhole.     We  can  not  under- 


THE  FALL    OF  THE   CLAY  AND    GRAVEL.        253 

stand  the  conflagration  without  the  comet ;  or  the  cave- 
life  without  both  ;  or  the  age  of  darkness  without  some- 
thing that  filled  the  heavens  with  clouds  ;  or  the  victory 
of  the  sun  without  the  clouds,  and  the  previous  obscura- 
tion of  the  sun. 

If  the  reader  takes  the  other  alternative,  that  these 
legends  are  not  fragments  of  a  colossal  falsehood,  then 
he  must  concede  that  the  earth,  since  man  inhabited  it, 
encountered  a  comet.  No  other  cause  or  event  could 
2>roduce  such  a  series  of  gigantic  consequences  as  is  here 
narrated. 

But  one  other  question  remains  :  Did  the  Drift  mate- 
rial come  from  the  comet  ? 

It  could  have  resulted  from  the  comet  in  two  ways  : 
either  it  was  a  part  of  the  comet's  substance  falling  upon 
our  planet  at  the  moment  of  contact ;  or  it  may  have  been 
torn  from  the  earth  itself  by  the  force  of  the  comet,  precise- 
ly as  it  has  been  supposed  that  it  was  produced  by  the  ice. 

The  final  solution  of  this  question  can  only  be  reached 
when  close  and  extensive  examination  of  the  Di'ift  depos- 
its have  been  made  to  ascertain  how  far  they  are  of  earth- 
origin. 

And  here  it  must  be  remembered  that  the  matter  which 
composes  our  earth  and  the  other  planets  and  the  comets 
was  probably  all  cast  out  from  the  same  source,  the  sun, 
and  hence  a  uniformity  runs  through  it  all.   Humboldt  says : 

"  We  are  '  astonished  at  being  able  to  touch,  weigh,  and 
chemically  decompose  metallic  and  earthy  masses  which 
belong  to  the  outer  world,  to  celestial  space '  ;  to  find  in 
them  the  minerals  of  our  native  earth,  making  it  proba- 
ble, as  the  great  Newton  conjectured,  that  the  materials 
which  belong  to  one  group  of  cosmical  bodies  are  for  the 
most  part  the  same."* 

*  "  Cosmos,"  vol.  iv,  p.  206. 


254  THE  LEGENDS. 

Some  aerolites  are  composed  of  finely  granular  tissue 
of  olivine,  angite,  and  labradorite  blended  together  (as  the 
meteoric  stone  found  at  Juvenas,  in  the  department  de 
I'Ardeche,  France)  : 

"  These  bodies  contain,  for  instance,  crystalline  sub- 
stances, perfectly  similar  to  those  of  our  earth's  crust  ;  and 
in  the  Siberian  mass  of  meteoric  iron,  investigated  by 
Pallas,  the  olivine  only  differs  from  common  olivine  by 
the  absence  of  nickel,  which  is  rej^laced  by  oxide  of  tin."* 

Neither  is  it  true  that  all  meteoric  stones  are  of  iron, 
Humboldt  refers  to  the  aerolites  of  Siena,  "  in  which  the 
iron  scarcely  amounts  to  two  per  cent,  or  the  earthy  aero- 
lite of  Alais,  (in  the  department  du  Gard,  France,)  ichich 
broJce  up  in  the  rcater,^''  (clay  ?)  ;  "  or,  lastly,  those  from 
Jonzac  and  Juvenas,  which  contained  no  metallic  iron.'''' \ 

Who  shall  say  w^hat  chemical  changes  may  take  place 
in  remnants  of  the  comet  floating  for  thousands  of  years 
through  space,  and  now  falling  to  our  earth  ?  And  who 
shall  say  that  the  material  of  all  comets  assumes  the  same 
form? 

I  can  not  but  continue  to  think,  however,  until  thor- 
ough scientific  investigation  disproves  the  theory,  that 
the  cosmical  granite-dust  which,  mixed  with  water,  be- 
came clay,  and  which  covers  so  large  a  part  of  the  world, 
we  might  say  one  half  the  earth-surface  of  the  jilanet, 
and  possibly  also  the  gravel  and  striated  stones,  fell  to 
the  earth  from  the  comet. 

It  is  a  startling  and  tremendous  conception,  but  we 
are  dealing  with  startling  and  tremendous  facts.  Even 
though  we  dismiss  the  theory  as  impossible,  we  still  find 
ourselves  face  to  face  with  the  question.  Where,  then,  did 
these  continental  masses  of  matter  come  from  ? 

*  "  Cosmos,"  vol.  i,  p.  131.  f  Ibid.,  vol.  i,  p.  129. 


THE  FALL    OF  THE  CLAY  AND    GRAVEL.        255 

I  tbink  the  reader  will  agree  with  me  that  the  theory 
of  the  glaeialists,  that  a  world-infolding  ice-sheet  produced 
them,  is  impossible  ;  to  reiterate,  they  are  found,  (on  the 
equator,)  where  the  ice-sheet  could  not  have  been  without 
ending  all  terrestrial  life  ;  and  they  are  not  found  w^here 
the  ice  must  have  been,  in  Siberia  and  Northwestern 
America,  if  ice  was  anywhere. 

If  neither  ice  nor  water  ground  up  the  earth-surface 
into  the  Drift,  then  we  must  conclude  that  the  comet  so 
ground  it  up,  or  brought  the  materials  with  it  already 
ground  up. 

The  probability  is,  that  both  of  these  suppositions  are 
in  part  true  ;  the  comet  brought  down  upon  the  earth  the 
clay-dust  and  part  of  the  gravel  and  bowlders  ;  Avhile 
the  awful  force  it  exerted,  meeting  the  earth  while  mov- 
ing at  the  rate  of  a  million  miles  an  hour,  smashed 
the  surface-rocks,  tore  them  to  pieces,  ground  them  up 
and  mixed  the  material  wdth  its  own,  and  deposited  all 
together  on  the  heated  surface  of  the  earth,  where  the 
lower  part  was  baked  by  the  heat  into  "till"  or  "hard- 
pan,"  while  the  rushing  cyclones  deposited  the  other  ma- 
terial in  partly  stratified  masses  or  drifts  above  it  ;  and 
part  of  this  in  time  was  rearranged  by  the  great  floods 
which  followed  the  condensation  of  the  cloud-masses  into 
rain  and  snow,  in  the  period  of  the  River  or  Champlain 
Drift. 

Nothing  can  be  clearer  than  that  the  inhabitants  of  the 
earth  believed  that  the  stones  fell  from  heaven — to  wit, 
from  the  comet.  But  it  would  be  unsafe  to  base  a  theory 
upon  such  a  belief,  inasmuch  as  stones,  and  even  fish  and 
toads,  taken  up  by  hurricanes,  have  often  fallen  again  in 
showers  ;  and  they  would  appear  to  an  uncritical  popula- 
tion to  have  fallen  from  heaven.  But  it  is,  at  least,  clear 
that  the  fall  of  the  stones  and  the  clay  are  associated  in 


256  THE  LEGENDS. 

the  legends  with  the  time  of  the  great  catastrophe  ;  they 
are  part  of  the  same  terrible  event. 

I  shall  briefly  recapitulate  some  of  the  evidence. 

The  Mattoles,  an  Indian  tribe  of  Northern  California, 
have  this  legend  : 

"  As  to  the  creation,  they  teach  that  a  ceilain  Big  Man 
began  by  making  the  naked  earth,  silent  and  bleak,  with 
nothing  of  plant  or  animal  thereon,  save  one  Indian,  who 
roamed  about  i)i  a  vwfully  hungry  and  desolate  state. 
Suddenly  there  arose  a  terrible  whirlwind,  the  air  grew 
dark  and  thick  with  dust  and  drifting  sand,  and  the  In- 
dian fell  upon  his  face  in  sore  dread.  Then  there  came  a 
great  calm,  and  the  man  rose  and  looked,  and  lo,  all  the 
earth  was  perfect  and  peopled  ;  the  grass  and  the  trees 
were  green  on  every  plain  and  hill  ;  the  beasts  of  the 
field,  the  fowls  of  the  aii',  the  creeping  things,  the  things 
that  swim,  moved  everywhere  in  his  sight."  * 

Here,  as  often  happens,  the  impressive  facts  are  re- 
membered, but  in  a  disarranged  chronolosrical  order. 
There  came  a  whirlwind,  thick  with  dust,  the  clay-dust, 
and  drifting  sand  and  gravel.  It  left  the  world  naked  and 
lifeless,  "  silent  and  bleak "  ;  only  one  Indian  remained, 
and  he  was  dreadfully  hungry.  But  after  a  time  all  this 
catastrophe  passed  away,  and  the  earth  was  once  more 
pojDulous  and  beautiful. 

In  the  Peruvian  legends,  Apocatequil  was  the  great 
god  who  saved  them  from  the  powers  of  the  darkness. 
He  restored  the  light.  He  produced  the  lightning  by 
hurling  stones  with  his  sling.  The  thunder-bolts  are 
small,  round,  smooth  stones.\ 

The  stone-worship,  which  played  so  large  a  part  in  an- 
tiquity, was  doubtless  due  to  the  belief  that  many  of  the 
stones  of  the  earth  had  fallen  from  heaven.    Dr.  Schwarz, 

*  Bancroft's  "Native  Races,"  vol.  iii,  p.  86. 
f  Brinton's  "Myths  of  the  New  World,"  p.  165. 


THE  FALL    OF  THE  CLAY  AND    GRAVEL.        257 

of  Berlin,  has  shown  that  the  lightning  was  associated  in 
poj^ular  legends  xcith  the  serpent. 

"  When  the  lightning  kindles  the  woods  it  is  asso- 
ciated with  the  descent  of  fire  from  heaven,  and,  as  in 
popular  imagination,  where  it  falls  it  scatters  the  thunder- 
bolts in  all  directions,  the  flint-stones,  which  flash  when 
struck,  were  supposed  to  be  these  fragments,  and  gave 
rise  to  the  stone-worship  so  frequent  in  the  old  world."  * 

In  Euroj^e,  in  old  times,  the  bowlders  were  called  devil- 
stones  ;  they  were  supposed  to  have  originated  from  "  the 
malevolent  agency  of  man's  sj)iritual  foes."  This  was  a 
reminiscence  of  their  real  source. 

The  reader  will  see  (page  173,  cade)  that  the  Iroquois 
legends  represent  the  great  battle  between  the  WJiite  One, 
the  sun,  and  the  Dark  One,  the  comet.  The  Dark  One 
\  as  wounded  to  death,  and,  as  it  fled  for  life,  "the  blood 
gushed  from  him  at  every  step,  and  as  it  fell  turned  into 
flint-stones.'''' 

Here  we  have  the  red  clay  and  the  gravel  both  repre- 
sented. 

Among  the  Central  Americans  the  flints  were  asso- 
ciated with  Hurakan,  Haokah,  and  Tlaloe,  the  gods  of 
storm  and  thunder  : 

"  The  thunder-bolts,  as  elsewhere,  were  believed  to  be 
flints,  and  thus,  as  the  emblem  of  the  fire  and  the  storm, 
this  stone  figures  conspicuously  in  their  myths.  Tohil, 
the  god  who  gave  the  Quiches  fire  by  shaking  his  sandals, 
was  represented  by  a  flint-stone.  Siieh  a  stone,  i)i  the  be- 
ginning of  things,  fell  from  heaven  to  earth,  and  broke 
into  sixteen  hundred  jyieces,  each  of  which  sprang  up  a 
god.  .  .  .  This  is  the  germ  of  the  adoration  of  stones  as 
emblems  of  the  fecundating  rains.  This  is  why,  for  ex- 
ample, the  Navajos  use,  as  their  charm  for  rain,  certain 

*  Brinton's  "Myths  of  the  New  World,"  p.  117. 


258  THE  LEGENDS. 

long,  round  stones,  which  they  think  fall  from  the  cloud 
when  it  thunders."  * 

In  the  Algonquin  legends  of  Manibozho,  or  Manoboshu, 
or  Nanabojou,  the  great  ancestor  of  all  the  Algic  tribes, 
the  hero  man-god,  we  learn,  had  a  terrific  battle  with  "his 
brother  Chakekenapok,  the  flint-stone,  xohom  he  hroJce  in 
pieces,  and  scattered  over  the  land,  and  changed  his  en- 
trails into  fruitful  vines.  The  conflict  was  long  and  ter- 
rible. The  face  of  nature  was  desolated  as  hy  a  tornado, 
and  the  gigantic  bowlders  and  loose  rocks  found  on  the 
prairies  are  the  missiles  hurled  by  the  mighty  combat- 
ants.'''' f 

We  read  in  the  Ute  legends,  given  on  page ,  ante, 

that  when  the  magical  arrow  of  Ta-wats  "  struck  the  sun- 
god  full  in  the  face,  the  sun  was  shivered  into  a  thousand 
fragments,  xohich  fell  to  the  earth,  causing  a  general  con- 
flagration." J 

Here  we  have  the  same  reference  to  matter  falling  on 
the  earth  from  the  heavens,  associated  with  devouring 
fire.  And  we  have  the  same  sequence  of  events,  for  we 
learn  that  when  all  of  Ta-wats  was  consumed  but  the 
head,  "his  tears  gushed  forth  in  a  flood,  which  spread 
over  the  earth  and  extinguished  the  fires." 

The  Aleuts  of  the  Aleutian  Archipelago  have  a  tradi- 
tion that  a  certain  Old  Man,  called  Iraghdadakh,  created 
men  "%  casting  stones  on  the  earth ;  he  flung  also  other 
stones  into  the  air,  the  loater,  and  over  the  land,  thus 
making  beasts,  birds,  and  fishes."  * 

It  is  a  general  belief  in  many  races  that  the  stone 
axes  and  celts  fell  from  the  heavens.    In  Japan,  the  stone 

*  Brinton's  "  Myths  of  the  \ew  World,"  p.  170.         f  Ibid.,  p.  181. 
X  Major  J.  W.  Powell,  "Popular  Science  Monthly,"  18T9,  p.  799. 

*  Bancroft's  "Native  Races,"  vol.  iii,  p.  104. 


THE  FALL    OF  THE  CLAY  AXD    GRAVEL.        259 

arrow-heads  are  rained  from  heaven  by  the  flying  spirits, 
who  shoot  them.  Similar  beliefs  are  found  in  Brittany, 
in  Madagascar,  Ireland,  Brazil,  China,  the  Shetlands, 
Scotland,  Portugal,  etc.  * 

In  the  legends  of  Quetzalcoatl,  the  central  figure  of 
the  Toltec  mythology,  we  have  a  white  man — a  bearded 
man — from  an  eastern  land,  mixed  up  with  something 
more  than  man.  He  was  the  Bird-serpent,  that  is,  the 
winged  or  flying  serpent,  the  great  snake  of  the  air,  the 
son  of  Iztac  Mixcoatl,  "  the  white-cloud  serpent,  the  spirit 
of  the  tornado."  f  He  created  the  world.  He  was  over- 
come by  Tezcatlipoca,  the  sj^irit  of  the  night. 

"When  he  would  promulgate  his  decrees,  his  herald 
proclaimed  them  from  Tzatzitepec,  the  hill  of  shouting, 
with  such  a  mighty  voice  that  it  could  be  heard  a  hun- 
dred leagues  around.  The  arrows  lohich  he  shot  trans- 
fixed great  trees  ;  the  stones  he  threw  leveled  forests  •  and 
when  he  laid  his  hands  on  the  rocks  the  mark  loas  in- 
delible:' X 

"His  svmbols  were  the  bird,  the  serpent,  the  cross, 
and  the  flinty  * 

In  the  Aztec  calendar  the  sign  for  the  age  of  fire  is 
the  flint. 

In  the  Chinese  Encyclopaedia  of  the  Emperor  Kang-hi, 
1C62,  we  are  told  : 

"In  traveling  from  the  shores  of  the  Eastern  Sea 
toward  Che-lu,  neither  brooks  nor  ponds  are  met  with  in 
the  country,  although  it  is  intersected  by  mountains  and 
valleys.  Nevertheless,  there  are  found  in  the  sand,  very  far 
away  from  the  sea,  oyster-shells  and  the  shields  of  crabs. 
The  tradition  of  the  Mongols  who  inhabit  the  country  is, 
that  it  has   been   said  from  time  immemoi'ial  that  in  a 

*  Tylor's  "Early  Mankind,"  p.  224. 

f  Brinton's  "  Myths  of  the  New  World,"  p.  197. 

X  Ibid.,  p.  19V.  »  Ibid.,  p.  198. 


260  TEE  LEGENDS. 

remote  antiquity  the  \vaters  of  the  dehige  flooded  the 
district,  and  when  they  retired  the  places  where  they  had 
been  made  their  a^^pearance  covered  with  sand.  .  .  .  This 
is  why  these  deserts  are  called  the  '  Sandy  Sea,'  which  in- 
dicates that  they  were  not  always  covered  with  sand  and 
gravel."  * 

In  the  Russian  legends,  a  "golden  ship  sails  across 
the  heavenly  sea  ;  it  breaks  into  fragments,  which  neither 
princes  nor  people  can  put  together  again," — reminding 
one  of  Humpty-Dumpty,  in  the  niirsery-song,  who,  when 
he  fell  from  his  elevated  position  on  the  wall — 

"  Xot  all  the  king's  horses, 
Nor  all  the  king's  men. 
Can  ever  make  whole  again." 

In  another  Russian  legend,  Perun,  the  thunder-god, 
destroys  the  devils  with  stone  hammers.  On  Ilya's  day, 
the  peasants  offer  him  a  roasted  animal,  which  is  cut  up 
and  scattered  over  the  fields,  f  just  as  we  have  seen  the 
great  dragon  or  serpent  cut  to  pieces  and  scattered  over 
the  world. 

jMr.  Christy  found  at  Bou-Merzoug,  on  the  plateau  of 
the  Atlas,  in  Northern  Africa,  in  a  bare,  deserted,  stony 
place  among  the  moimtains,  a  collection  of  fifteen  hundred 
tombs,  made  of  rude  limestone  slabs,  set  up  with  one  slab 
to  form  a  roof,  so  as  to  make  perfect  dolmens — closed 
chambers — where  the  bodies  were  packed  in. 

"  Tradition  says  that  a  wicked  people  lived  there,  and 
for  their  sins  stones  icere  rained  upon  them  from  heaven  ; 
so  they  built  these  chambers  to  creep  into."  J 

In  addition  to  the  legend  of  "Phaeton,"  already  given, 
Ovid  derived  from  the  legends  of  his  race  another  story, 

*  Tylor's  "  Early  Mankind,"  p.  328. 
\  Poor,  "Sanskrit  Literature,"  p.  400. 
X  Tylor's  "  Early  Manldnd,"  p.  222. 


THE  FALL    OF  THE  CLAY  AND    GRAVEL.        261 

which  seems  to  have  had  reference  to  the  same  event. 
He  says  (Fable  XI)  : 

"After  the  men  who  came  from  the  Tyrian  nation  had 
touched  this  grove  with  ill-fated  steps,  and  the  urn  let 
down  into  the  water  made  a  splash,  the  azure  dragon 
stretched  forth  his  head  from  the  deep  cave,  and  uttered 
dreadful  hissings." 

We  are  reminded  of  the  flying  monster  of  Hesiod, 
which  roared  and  hissed  so  terribly. 
Ovid  continues  : 

"  The  urns  dropped  from  their  hands,  and  the  blood 
left  their  bodies,  and  a  sudden  trembling  seized  their 
astonished  limbs.  He  wreathes  his  scaly  orbs  in  rolling 
spirals,  and,  with  a  spring,  becomes  twisted  into  mighty 
folds  ;  and,  uprearing  himself  from  below  the  middle  into 
the  light  air,  he  looks  down  upon  all  the  grove,  and  is  of  " 
(as)  "  large  size,  as,  if  you  were  to  look  on  him  entire,  the 
serpent  which  separates  the  two  Bears  "  (the  constella- 
tions). 

He  slays  the  Phoenicians  ;  "  some  he  kills  with  his 
sting,  some  with  his  long  folds,  some  breathed  upon  by 
the  venom  of  his  baleful  poison." 

Cadmus  casts  a  huge  stone,  as  big  as  a  millstone, 
against  him,  but  it  falls  harmless  upon  his  scales,  "  that 
were  like  a  coat-of-mail "  ;  then  Cadmus  pierced  him  with 
his  spear.  In  his  fall  he  crushes  the  forests  ;  the  blood 
flows  from  his  poisonous  palate  and  changes  the  color  of 
the  grass.    He  is  slain. 

Then,  under  the  advice  of  Pallas,  Cadmus  soics'the  earth 
with  the  dragon^ s  teeth,  "  under  the  earth  turned  up,  as  the 
seeds  of  a  future  people."  Afterward,  the  earth  begins  to 
move,  and  armed  men  rise  up  ;  they  slay  Cadmus,  and 
then  fight  with  and  slay  each  other. 

This  seems  to  be  a  recollection  of  the  comet,  and  the 
stones  falling  from  heaven  ;  and  upon  the  land  so  afflicted 


263  THE  LEGENDS. 

subsequently  a  warlike  and  aggressive  and  quarrelsome 
race  of  men  springs  up. 

In  the  contest  of  Hercules  with  the  Lygians,  on  the 
road  from  Caucasus  to  the  Ilesjyerkles,  "there  is  an  at- 
tempt to  explain  mythically  the  origin  of  the  round 
quartz  blocks  in  the  Lygian  field  of  stones,  at  the  mouth 
of  the  Rhone."  * 

In  the  "  Prometheus  Delivered  "  of  ^Eschylus,  Jupiter 
draws  together  a  cloud,  and  causes  "the  district  round 
about  to  be  covered  tclth  a  shoioer  of  round  sto)ies."  f 

The  legends  of  Europe  refer  to  a  race  buried  under 
sand  and  earth  : 

"The  inhabitants  of  Central  Europe  and  Teutonic 
races  who  came  late  to  England,  place  their  mythical  he- 
roes tender  ground  in  caves,  in  vaults  beneath  enchanted 
castles,  or  in  mounds  which  open  and  show  their  buried 
inhabitants  alive  and  busy  about  the  avocations  of  earthly 
men.  ...  In  Morayshire  the  buried  race  are  supj)osed 
to  have  been  burled  tinder  the  sand-hills,  as  they  are  in 
some  parts  of  Brittany."  \ 

Turning  again  to  America,  we  find,  in  the  great  prayer 
of  the  Aztecs  to  Tezcalipoca,  given  on  page  186,  ante, 
many  references  to  some  material  substances  falling  from 
heaven  ;  we  read  : 

"  Thine  anger  and  indignation  has  descended  upon  tcs 
in  these  days,  .  .  .  coming  down  even  as. s^o??es,s;jcar5,  «»c? 
darts  upon  the  loretches  that  inhabit  the  earth  ;  this  is  the 
pestilence  by  which  we  are  afilicted  and  almost  destroyed^ 
The  children  die,  "  broken  and  dashed  to  pieces  as  against 
stones  and  a  wall.  .  .  .  Thine  anger  and  thy  indignation 
does  it  delight  in  hurling  the  stone  and  arroic  and  spear. 
The  grinders  of  thy  teeth''"'  (the  dragon's  teeth  of  Ovid  ?) 
"are  employed,  and  thy  bitter  whips  upon  the  miserable  of 

*  "  Cosmos,"  vol.  i,  p.  115.  f  Ibid.,  p.  115. 

X  "Frost  and  Fire,"  vol.  ii,  p.  190. 


THE  FALL    OF  THE  CLA  Y  AND   GRA  VEL.       263 

thy  people.  .  .  .  Hast  thou  verily  determined  that  it  ut- 
terly perish;  .  .  .  that  the  peopled  place  become  a  wooded 
hill  and  a  loildeniess  of  stones?  ...  Is  there  to  be  no 
mercy  nor  pity  for  us  until  the  arroics  of  thy  fury  are 
spent?  .  .  .  Thine  arvowii  and  stones  have  soiX'Iy  hurt  this 
poor  people.'''' 

In  the  legend  of  the  Indians  of  Lake  Tahoe  (see  page 
168,  ante),  we  are  told  that  the  stars  were  melted  by  the 
great  conflagration,  and  they  rained  down  molten  raetal 
upon  the  earth. 

In  the  Hindoo  legend  (see  page  171,  ante)  of  the  great 
battle  between  Rama,  the  sun-god,  and  Ravana,  the  evil- 
one,  Rama  persuaded  the  monkeys  to  help  him  build  a 
bridge  to  the  Island  of  Lanka,  "and  the  stones  which 
crop  out  through  Soxithern  India  are  said  to  have  been 
drop)ped  by  the  monkey  builders.'''' 

In  the  legend  of  the  Tupi  Indians  (see  page  175,  ante),  we 
are  told  that  God  "  swept  about  the  fire  in  such  way  that  in 
some  places  he  raised  mountains  and  in  others  dug  valleys.'''' 

In  the  Bible  we  have  distinct  references  to  the  fall 
of  matter  from  heaven.  In  Deuteronomy  (chap,  xxviii), 
among  the  consequences  which  are  to  follow  disobedience 
of  God's  will,  we  have  the  following  : 

"  22.  The  Lord  shall  smite  thee  .  .  .  with  an  extreme 
burning,  and  with  the  sword,  and  with  blasting,  and  with 
mildew  ;  and  they  shall  pursue  thee  until  thou  perish. 

"  23.  And  thy  heaven  that  is  over  thy  head  shall  be 
brass,  and  the  earth  that  is  under  thee  shall  be  iron. 

"  24.  The  Lord  shall  make  the  rain  of  thy  land  poio- 
der  and  dust :  from  heaven  shall  it  come  down  upon 
thee,  until  thou  be  destroyed.  .  .  . 

"29.  And  thou  shalt  grope  at  noonday,  as  the  blind 
gropeth  in  darkness." 

And  even  that  marvelous  event,  so  much  mocked  at 
by  modern  thought,  the  standing-still  of  the  sun,  at  the 


264  THE  LEGENDS. 

command  of  Joshua,  may  be,  after  all,  a  remiuisecnce  of 
the  catastrophe  of  the  Drift.  In  the  American  legends, 
we  read  that  the  sun  stood  still,  and  Ovid  tells  us  that 
"a  day  was  lost."  Who  shall  say  what  circumstances 
accompanied  an  event  great  enough  to  crack  the  globe 
itself  into  immense  fissures  ?  It  is,  at  least,  a  curious  fact 
that  in  Joshua  (chap,  x)  the  standing-still  of  the  sun  was 
accompanied  by  a  fall  of  stones  from  heaven  by  which 
multitudes  were  slain. 
Here  is  the  record  : 

"  11.  And  it  came  to  pass,  as  they  fled  from  before 
Israel,  and  were  in  the  going  down  to  Beth-boron,  that 
the  Lord  cast  doion  great  stones  from  heaven  upon  them 
unto  Azekah,  and  they  died  :  there  were  more  which  died 
with  hailstones  than  they  whom  the  children  of  Israel 
slew  with  the  sword." 

"  13.  And  the  sun  stood  still,  and  the  moon  stayed, 
until  the  people  had  avenged  themselves  upon  their  ene- 
mies. Is  not  this  written  in  the  book  of  Jasher  ?  So  the 
sun  stood  still  in  the  midst  of  heaven,  and  hasted  not  to 
go  down  about  a  whole  day. 

"  14.  And  there  was  no  deti/  like  that  before  it  or  after 
it,  that  the  Lord  hearkened  unto  the  voice  of  a  man  :  for 
the  Lord  fought  for  Israel." 

The  "book  of  Jasher"  was,  we  are  told,  a  very  an- 
cient work,  long  since  lost.  Is  it  not  possible  that  a  great, 
dim  memory  of  a  terrible  event  was  applied  by  tradition 
to  the  mighty  captain  of  the  Jews,  just  as  the  doings  of 
Zeus  have  been  attributed,  in  the  folk-lore  of  Europe,  to 
Charlemagne  and  Barbarossa  ? 

If  the  contact  of  Lexell's  comet  with  the  earth  would, 
as  shown  on  page  84,  ante,  have  increased  the  length  of 
the  sidereal  year  three  hours,  what  effect  might  not  a 
comet,  many  times  larger  than  the  mass  of  the  earth,  have 
had  ujion  the  revolution  of  the  earth  ?     "Were  the  heat. 


THE  FALL    OF  THE   CLA  Y  AND    GRA  VEL.        265 

the  conflagrations,  and  the  tearing  up  of  the  earth's  sur- 
face caused  by  such  an  arrestment  or  partial  slowing-up 
of  the  earth's  revolution  on  its  axis  ? 

I  do  not  propound  these  questions  as  any  part  of  my 
theory,  but  merely  as  suggestions.  The  American  and 
Polynesian  legends  represent  that  the  catastrophe  in- 
creased the  length  of  the  days.  This  may  mean  nothing, 
or  a  great  deal.  At  least,  Joshua's  legend  may  yet  take 
its  place  among  the  scientific  possibilities. 

But  it  is  in  the  legend  of  the  Toltecs  of  Central 
America,  as  preserved  in  one  of  the  sacred  books  of  the 
race,  the  "Codex  Chimalpopoca,"  that  we  find  the  clear- 
est and  most  indisputable  refei'ences  to  the  fall  of  gravel 
(see  page  166,  ante)  : 

" '  The  third  sun '  (or  era)  '  is  called  Quia-Tonatiuh, 
sun  of  rain,  because  there  fell  a  rain  of  fire  ;  all  which  ex- 
isted burned  ;  and  there  fell  a  rain  of  gravel.^ 

"  '  They  also  narrate  that  while  the  sandstone  loJiich  %oe 
noio  see  scattered  about,  and  the  tetzontli '  {amygdaloide 
poreuse,  basalt,  trap-rocks)  'boiled  with  great  tumult, 
there  also  arose  the  rocks  of  vermilion  color.' 

"  'Now  this  was  in  the  year  Ce  Tecpatl,  One  Flint, 
it  was  the  day  Nahui-  Quiahuitl,  Fourth  Rain.  Now,  in 
this  day  in  which  men  were  lost  and  destroyed  in  a  rain 
of  fire,  they  were  transformed  into  goslings.' "  * 

"We  find  also  many  allusions  in  the  legends  to  the  clay. 

When  the  Navajos  climbed  up  fi'om  their  cave  they 
found  the  earth  covered  with  clay  into  which  they  sank 
mid-leg  deep  ;  and  when  the  water  ran  off  it  left  the 
whole  world  full  of  mud. 

In  the  Creek  and  Seminole  legends  the  Great  Spirit 
made  the  first  man,  in  the  primeval  cave,  "  from  the  clay 
around  him." 

*  "North  Americans  of  Antiquity,"  p.  499. 
13 


SGG  THE  LEGENDS. 

Sanchoniathon,  from  the  other  side  of  the  world,  tells 
us,  in  the  Phoenician  legends  (see  page  209,  ante),  that 
first  came  chaos,  and  out  of  chaos  was  generated  mot  or 
mud. 

In  the  Miztec  (American)  legends  (see  page  21-4,  ante), 
we  are  told  that  in  the  Age  of  Darkness  there  was  "noth- 
ing but  mud  and  slime  on  all  the  face  of  the  earth." 

In  the  Quiche  legends  we  are  told  that  the  first  men 
were  destroyed  by  fire  and  joeYcA  from  heaven. 

In  the  Quiche  legends  we  also  have  many  allusions  to 
the  wet  and  muddy  condition  of  the  eai'th  before  the  re- 
turning sun  dried  it  up. 

In  the  legends  of  the  Xorth  American  Indians  we  read 
that  the  earth  was  covered  with  great  heaps  of  ashes  ; 
doubtless  the  fine,  dry  powder  of  the  clay  looked  like 
ashes  before  the  water  fell  upon  it. 

There  is  another  curious  fact  to  be  considered  in  con- 
nection with  these  legends — that  the  calamity  seems  to 
have  brought  with  it  some  compensating  wealth. 

Thus  we  find  Beowulf,  when  destroyed  by  the  mid- 
night monster,  rejoicing  to  think  that  his  people  would 
receive  a  treasure,  a  fortune  by  the  monster's  death. 

Hence  we  have  a  whole  mass  of  legends  wherein  a  dra- 
gon or  great  serpent  is  associated  with  a  precious  horde 
of  gold  or  jewels. 

"  The  Scythians  had  a  saga  of  the  sacred  gold  which 
fell  burning  from  heaven.  The  ancients  had  also  some 
strange  fictions  of  silver  which  fell  from  heaven,  and  with 
which  it  had  been  attempted,  under  the  Emj)eror  Seve- 
rus,  to  cover  bronze  coins."  * 

"In  Peru  the  god  of  riches  was  worshiped  under  the 
image  of  a  rattlesnake,  horned  and  hairy,  with  a  tail  of 
gold.     It  was  said  to  have  descended  from  the  heavens  in 

*  "Cosmos,"  vol.  i,  p.  115. 


THE  FALL    OF  THE   CLA  Y  AND    GRA  VEL.        267 

the  sight  of  all  the  people,  and  to  have  been  seen  by  the 
whole  army  of  the  Inca."  * 

The  Peruvians — probably  in  reference  to  this  event — 
chose  as  their  arms  two  serpents  with  their  tails  interlaced. 

Among  the  Greeks  and  ancient  Germans  the  fiery 
dragon  was  the  dispenser  of  riches,  and  ^'icatches  a  treas- 
xire  in  the  earth.''''  f 

These  legends  may  be  explained  by  the  fact  that  in 
the  Ural  Mountains,  on  the  east  of  Europe,  in  South 
America,  in  South  Africa,  and  in  other  localities,  the  Drift 
gravels  contain  gold  and  j^recious  stones. 

The  diamond  is  found  in  drift-gravels  alone.  It  is 
pure  carbon  crystallized.  Man  has  been  unable  to  repro- 
duce it,  except  in  minute  particles  ;  nor  can  he  tell  in 
what  laboratory  of  nature  it  has  been  fabricated.  It  is 
not  found  in  situ  in  any  of  the  rocks  of  an  earth-origin. 
Has  it  been  formed  in  space  ?  Is  it  an  outcome  of  that 
pure  carbon  which  the  spectroscope  has  revealed  to  us 
as  burning  in  some  of  the  comets  ? 

*  Brinton's  "Myths  of  the  New  World,"  p.  125.  f  Ibid.,  p.  125. 


268  THE  LEGENDS. 


CHAPTER  XI. 

THE    ARABIAN    MYTHS. 

And  when  we  turn  to  the  Arabian  tales,  we  not  only 
see,  by  their  identity  with  the  Hindoo  and  Slavonic 
legends,  that  they  are  of  great  antiquity,  dating  back  to 
the  time  when  these  widely  diverse  races,  Aryan  and 
Semitic,  were  one,  but  we  find  in  them  many  allusions  to 
the  battle  between  good  and  evil,  between  God  and  the 
serpent. 

Abou  Mohammed  the  Lazy,  who  is  a  very  great  magi- 
cian, with  power  over  the  forces  of  the  air  and  the  Afrites, 
beholds  a  battle  between  two  great  snakes,  one  tawny- 
colored,  the  other  white.  The  tawny  serpent  is  overcom- 
ing the  white  one  ;  but  Abou  Mohammed  kills  it  with  a 
rock.  "The  white  serpent"  (the  sun)  "departed  and 
was  absent  for  a  lohile,  but  returned";  and  the  tawny 
serpent  was  torn  to  pieces  and  scattered  over  the  land, 
and  nothing  remained  of  her  but  her  head. 

And  then  we  have  the  legend  of  "  the  City  of  Brass," 
or  bronze.  It  relates  to  "  an  ancient  age  and  period  in 
the  olden  time,"  One  of  the  caliphs,  Abdelmelik,  the 
son  of  Marwan,  has  heard  from  antiquity  that  Solomon, 
(Solomon  is,  in  Arabic,  like  Charlemagne  in  the  middle- 
age  myths  of  Europe,  the  synonym  for  everything  vener- 
able and  powerful,)  had  imprisoned  genii  in  bottles  of 
bi-ass,  and  the  Caliph  desired  to  procure  some  of  these 
bottles. 


THE  ARABIAN  MYTHS.  2G9 

Then  Talib  (the  son  of  Sahl)  tells  the  Caliph  that  a 
man  once  voyaged  to  the  Island  of  Sicily,  but  a  wind 
arose  and  blew  him  away  "  to  one  of  the  lands  of  God." 

"  This  happened  during  the  black  darkness  of  night." 

It  was  a  remote,  unfrequented  land  ;  the  people  were 
black  and  lived  in  caves,  and  were  naked  and  of  strange 
speech.  They  cast  their  nets  for  Talib  and  brought  up  a 
bottle  of  brass  or  bronze,  containing  one  of  the  imprisoned 
genii,  who  came  out  of  it,  as  a  blue  smoke,  and  cried  in  a 
horrible  voice,  "Repentance,  repentance,  O  j)roj)het  of 
God  ! " 

All  this  was  in  a  Western  land.  And  Abdelmelik  sent 
Talib  to  find  this  land.  It  was  "  a  journey  of  two  years 
and  some  months  going,  and  the  like  returning."  It  was 
in  a  far  country.  They  first  reach  a  deserted  palace  in  a 
desolate  land,  the  palace  of  "  Kosh  the  son  of  Sheddad 
the  son  of  Ad,  the  greater."     He  read  an  inscription  : 

"Here  was  a  people,  whom,  after  their  works,  thou 
shalt  see  wept  over  for  their  lost  dominion. 

"And  in  this  palace  is  the  last  information  respecting 
lords  collected  in  the  dust. 

"  Death  hath  destroyed  them  and  disunited  them, 
and  in  the  dust  they  have  lost  what  they  amassed." 

Talib  goes  on  with  his  troops,  until  they  come  to  a 
great  pillar  of  black  stone,  sunk  into  which,  to  his  arm- 
pits, was  a  mighty  creature  ;  "  he  had  two  wings  and  four 
arms  ;  two  of  them  like  those  of  the  sons  of  Adam,  and 
two  like  the  fore-legs  of  lions  with  claws.  He  had  hair 
upon  his  head  like  the  tails  of  horses,  and  two  eyes  like 
two  burning  coals,  and  he  had  a  third  eye  in  his  forehead, 
like  the  eye  of  the  lynx,  from  which  there  appeared 
sparks  of  fire." 

He   was   the   imprisoned    comet-monster,    and    these 


270 


THE  LEGENDS. 


arms  and  eyes,  darting  fire,  remind  us  of  the  description 
given  of  the  ai:)ostate  angel  in  tbe  other  legends  : 


The  Afrite  in  the  Pillar. 

"  He  was  tall  and  black  ;  and  he  was  crying  out,  '  Ex- 
tolled be  the  perfection  of  my  Lord,  who  hath  appointed 
me  this  severe  affliction  and  painful  torture  until  the  day 
of  resurrection  ! '  " 


THE  ARABIAN  MYTHS.  271 

The  party  of  Talib  were  stupefied  at  the  sight  and 
retreated  in  fright.  And  the  wise  man,  the  Sheik  Ab- 
delsamad,  one  of  the  party,  drew  near  and  asked  the  im- 
prisoned monster  his  history.     And  he  replied  : 

"I  am  an  Afrite  of  the  genii,  and  ray  name  is  Dahish, 
the  son  of  Elamash,  and  I  am  restrained  here  by  the 
majesty  of  God. 

"  There  belonged  to  one  of  the  sons  of  Eblis  an  idol 
of  red  carnelian,  of  which  I  was  made  guardian  ;  and 
there  used  to  worship  it  one  of  the  kings  of  the  sea,  of 
illustrious  dignity,  of  great  glory,  leading,  among  his 
troops  of  the  genii,  a  million  warriors  who  smote  with 
swords  before  him,  and  who  answered  his  prayer  in  cases 
of  difficulty.  These  genii,  who  obeyed  him,  were  under 
my  command  and  authority,  following  my  words  when  I 
ordered  them  :  all  of  them  were  in  rebellion  against  Solo- 
mon the  son  of  David  (on  both  of  whom  be  peace  !),  and 
I  used  to  enter  the  body  of  the  idol,  to  command  them 
and  to  forbid  them." 

Solomon  sent  word  to  this  king  of  the  sea  that  he 
must  give  up  the  worship  of  the  idol  of  red  carnelian  ; 
the  king  consulted  the  idol,  and  this  Afi'ite,  sj^eaking 
through  the  idol,  encouraged  the  king  to  refuse.  What, 
— he  said  to  him, — can  Solomon  do  to  thee,  "  when  thou 
art  in  the  midst  of  this  great  sea  ? "  And  so  Solomon 
came  to  compel  the  island-race  to  worship  the  true  God  ; 
he  surrounded  his  island,  and  filled  the  land  with  his 
troops,  assisted  by  birds  and  wild  beasts,  and  a  dreadful 
battle  followed  in  the  air  : 

"After  this  they  came  upon  us  all  together,  and  we 
contended  with  him  in  a  wide  tract  for  a  period  of  two 
days ;  and  calamity  befell  us  on  the  third  day,  and  the 
decree  of  God  (whose  name  be  exalted  !)  was  executed 
among  us.  The  first  Avho  charged  upon  Solomon  were  I 
and  my  troops  :  and  I  said  to  my  companions,  "  Keep  in 
your  places  in  the  battle-field  while  I  go  forth  to  them 
and  challenge  Dimiriat.^ "     (Dimiriat  was  the  Sun,  the 


272 


THE  LEGENDS. 


bright  one.)  "And  lo,  he  came  forth,  like  a  great  mount- 
ain, Ids  fires  flaming  and  his  smoke  ascending  ,'  and  he 
approached  and  smote  me  icith  a  flaming  fire ,'  and  his 
arrow  prevailed  over  my  fire.  lie  cried  out  at  me  \cith  a 
prodigious  cry,  so  that  I  imagined  the  heaven  had  fcdlen 
and  closed  over  me,  and  the  mountains  shook  at  his  voice. 


DaHISII    overtaken   by    DiMIRLiiT. 


Then  he  commanded  his  companions,  and  they  charged 
upon  us  all  together  :  we  also  charged  upon  them,  and  we 
cried  out  one  to  another  :  the  fires  rose  cmd  the  smoke  as- 
cended, the  hearts  of  the  combatants  were  almost  cleft 
asunder,  and  the  battle  raged.  The  birds  fought  in  the 
air,  and  the  wild  beasts  in  the  dust;  and  I  contended 
with  Dimiriat  until  he  wearied  me  and  I  wearied  him  : 


THE  ARABIAN  MYTHS.  273 

after  which    I   became  weak,   and  my  companions  and 
troops  were  enervated  and  my  tribes  were  routed." 

The  birds  tore  out  the  eyes  of  the  demons,  and  cut 
them  in  pieces  until  tJte  earth  toas  covered  icith  the  frag- 
ments, like  the  trunks  of  palm-trees.  "  As  for  me,  I  Hew 
from  before  Dimiriat,  but  he  followed  me  a  journey  of 
three  months  until  he  overtook  me."  And  Solomon  hol- 
lowed out  the  black  pillar,  and  sealed  him  in  it  with  his 
signet,  and  chained  him  until  the  day  of  resurrection. 

And  Talib  and  his  party  go  on  still  farther,  and  lind 
"  the  City  of  Brass,"  a  weird,  mysterious,  lost  city,  in  a 
desolate  land  ;  silent,  and  all  its  people  dead  ;  a  city  once 
of  high  civilization,  with  mighty,  brazen  walls  and  vast 
machinery  and  great  mysteries  ;  a  city  whose  inhabitants 
had  perished  suddenly  in  some  great  calamity.  And  on 
the  walls  were  tablets,  and  on  one  of  them  were  inscribed 
these  solemn  words  : 

"  '  Where  are  the  kings  and  the  peoples  of  the  earth  ? 
They  have  quitted  that  which  they  have  built  and  peo- 
pled. And  in  the  grave  they  are  pledged  for  their  past 
actions.  There,  after  destruction,  they  have  become  pu- 
trid corpses.  Where  are  the  troops  ?  They  repelled  not 
nor  profited.  And  where  is  that  which  they  collected  and 
hoarded  ?  The  decree  of  the  Lord  of  the  Throne  surprised 
them.    Neither  riches  nor  refuge  saved  them  from  it.' 

"And  they  saw  the  merchants  dead  in  their  shops  ;  their 
skins  were  dried,  and  their  bones  were  carious,  and  they 
had  become  examples  to  him  who  would  be  admonished." 

Everywhere  were  the  dead,  "lying  upon  skins,  and 
appearing  almost  as  if  they  would  speak." 

Their  death  seems  to  have  been  due  to  a  long  period 
of  terrible  heat  and  drought. 

On  a  couch  was  a  damsel  more  beautiful  than  all  the 
daughters  of  Adam ;  she  was  embalmed,  so  as  to  preserve 
all  her  charms.     Her  eyes  were  of  glass,  filled  with  quick- 


274  THE  LEGENDS. 

silver,  which  seemed  to  follow  the  beholder's  every  motion. 
Near  her  was  a  tablet  of  gold,  on  which  was  inscribed : 

"In  the  name  of  God,  the  compassionate,  the  merci- 
ful, .  .  .  the  Lord  of  lords,  the  Cause  of  causes  ;  the  Ever- 
lasting, the  Eternal.  .  .  .  Where  are  the  kings  of  the 
regions  of  the  earth?  Where  are  the  Amalekites?  Where 
are  the  mighty  monarchs?  The  mansions  are  void  of 
their  presence,  and  they  have  quitted  their  families  and 
homes.  Where  are  the  kings  of  the  foreigners  and  the 
Arabs?  They  have  all  died  and  become  rotten  bones. 
Where  are  the  lords  of  high  degree  ?  They  have  all  died. 
Where  are  Korah  and  Ilaman  ?  Where  is  Sheddad,  the 
son  of  Add  ?  Where  are  Canaan  and  Pharaoh  ?  God 
hath  cut  them  off,  and  it  is  he  who  cutteth  short  the  lives 
of  mankind,  and  he  hath  made  the  mansions  to  be  void 
for  their  presence.  ...  I  am  Tadmor,  the  daughter  of 
the  king  of  the  Amalekites,  of  those  who  ruled  the  coun- 
tries with  equity.  I  possessed  what  none  of  the  kings 
possessed,"  (i.  e.,  in  extent  of  dominion,)  "  and  ruled  with 
justice,  and  acted  impartially  toward  my  subjects  ;  I  gave 
and  bestowed  ;  and  I  lived  a  long  time  in  the  enjoyment 
of  happiness  and  an  easy  life,  and  emancipated  both  fe- 
male and  male  slaves.  Thus  I  did  until  the  summoner  of 
death  came,  and  disasters  occurred  before  me.  And  the 
cause  was  this  :  Seven  years  in  succession  came  upon  us, 
during  which  no  water  descended  on  us  from  heaven,  nor 
did  any  grass  grow  for  us  on  the  face  of  the  earth.  So 
we  ate  what  food  we  had  in  our  dwellings,  and  after  that 
we  fell  upon  the  beasts  and  ate,  and  there  remained 
nothing.  Upon  this,  therefore,  I  caused  the  wealth  to  be 
brought,  and  meted  it  with  a  measure,  and  sent  it,  by 
trusty  men,  who  went  about  with  it  through  all  regions, 
not  leaving  unvisited  a  single  large  city,  to  seek  for  some 
food.  But  they  found  it  not,  and  they  returned  to  us  with 
the  wealth  after  a  long  absence.  So,  thereupon  we  ex- 
posed to  view  our  riches  and  our  treasures,  locked  the 
gates  of  the  fortresses  in  our  city,  and  submitted  ourselves 
to  the  decrees  of  our  Lord  ;  and  thus  we  all  died,  as  thou 
beholdest,  and  left  what  we  had  built  and  what  we  had 
treasured." 


THE  ARABIAN  MYTHS.  275 

And  this  strange  tale  has  relations  to  all  the  other 
legends. 

Here  we  have  the  great  demon,  darting  fire,  blazing, 
smoking,  the  destructive  one  ;  the  rebel  against  the  good 
God.  He  is  overthro^^'n  by  the  bright-shining  one,  Dimi- 
riat,  the  same  as  the  Dev-Mrityu  of  the  Hindoos  ;  he  and 
his  forces  are  cut  to  pieces,  and  scattered  over  the  land, 
and  he,  after  being  chased  for  months  through  space,  is 
captured  and  chained.  Associated  with  all  this  is  a  i3eople 
of  the  Bronze  Age — a  highly  civilized  people  ;  a  people 
living  on  an  island  in  the  Western  Sea,  who  perished  by  a 
calamity  which  came  on  them  suddenly;  "a  summoner  of 
death  "  came  and  brought  disasters  ;  and  then  followed  a 
long  period  of  terrible  heat  and  drought,  in  which  not 
they  alone,  but  all  nations  and  cities,  were  starved  by  the 
drying  up  of  the  earth.  The  demon  had  devoured  the 
cows — the  clouds  ;  like  Cacus,  he  had  dragged  them  back- 
ward into  his  den,  and  no  Hercules,  no  Indra,  had  arisen 
to  hurl  the  electric  bolt  that  was  to  kill  the  heat,  restore 
the  clouds,  and  bring  upon  the  parched  earth  the  grateful 
rain.  And  so  this  Bronze- Age  race  spread  out  their  use- 
less treasures  to  the  sun,  and,  defpite  their  miseries,  they 
praise  the  God  of  gods,  the  Cause  of  causes,  the  merci- 
ful, the  compassionate,  and  lie  down  to  die. 

And  in  the  evil-one,  captured  and  chained  and  sealed 
by  Solomon,  we  seem  to  have  the  same  thing  prefigured 
in  Revelation,  xx,  2  : 

"2.  And  he  laid  hold  on  the  dragon,  the  old  serpent, 
which  is  the  devil  and  Satan,  and  bound  him  for  a  thou- 
sand years. 

"  3.  And  he  cast  him  into  the  bottomless  pit,  and  shut 
him  up,  and  set  a  seal  upon  him,  that  he  should  no  more 
seduce  the  nations." 


276  THE  LEGENDS. 


CHAPTER  XII. 

THE    BOOK    OF   JOB. 

"We  are  told  in  the  Bible  (Job,  i,  16) — 

"  While  he  [Job]  was  yet  speaking,  there  came  also 
another,  and  said,  The  fire  of  God  is  fallen  from  heaven 
and  hath  burned  up  the  sheep,  and  the  servants,  and  con- 
sumed them,  and  I  only  am  escaped  alone  to  tell  thee." 

And  in  verse  18  we  are  told — 

"  While  he  was  yet  speaking,  there  came  also  another, 
and  said.  Thy  sons  and  thy  daughters  were  eating  and 
drinking  wine  in  their  eldest  brother's  house  : 

"  19.  And  behold,  there  came  a  great  wind  from  the 
wilderness,  and  smote  the  four  corners  of  the  house,  and 
it  fell  upon  the  young  men,  and  they  are  dead  ;  and  I  only 
am  escaped  alone  to  tell  thee." 

We  have  here  the  record  of  a  great  convulsion.  Fire 
fell  from  heaven  ;  the  fire  of  God.  It  was  not  lightning, 
for  it  killed  the  seven  thousand  sheep,  (see  chap,  i,  3,)  be- 
longing to  Job,  and  all  his  shepherds  ;  and  not  only  killed 
but  consumed  them — burned  them  up.  A  fire  falling 
from  heaven  great  enough  to  kill  seven  thousand  sheep 
must  have  been  an  extensive  conflagration,  extending  over 
a  large  area  of  country.  And  it  seems  to  have  been  ac- 
companied by  a  great  wind — a  cyclone — which  killed  all 
Job's  sons  and  daughters. 

Has  the  book  of  Job  anything  to  do  with  that  great 
event  which  we  have  been  discussing  ?  Did  it  originate 
out  of  it  ?     Let  us  see. 

In  the  first  place  it  is,  I  believe,  conceded  by  the  fore- 


THE  BOOK  OF  JOB.  277 

most  scholars  that  the  book  of  Job  is  not  a  Hebrew  work  ; 
it  w^as  not  written  by  Moses  ;  it  far  antedates  even  the 
time  of  Abraham. 

That  very  high  orthodox  authority,  George  Smith, 
F.  S.  A.,  in  his  work  shows  that — 

"  Everything  relating  to  this  patriarch  has  been  vio- 
lently controverted.  His  country  ;  the  age  in  which  he 
lived  ;  the  author  of  the  book  that  bears  his  name  ;  have 
all  been  fruitful  themes  of  discord,  and,  as  if  to  confound 
confusion,  these  disputants  are  interrupted  by  others,  who 
•would  maintain  that  no  such  person  ever  existed  ;  that 
the  whole  tale  is  a  poetic  fiction,  an  allegory  !  "  * 

Job  lived  to  be  two  hundi-ed  years  old,  oi",  accoi'ding 
to  the  Septuagint,  four  hundred.  This  great  age  rele- 
gates him  to  the  era  of  the  antediluvians,  or  their  imme- 
diate descendants,  among  whom  such  extreme  ages  were 
said  to  have  been  common. 

C.  S.  Bryant  says  : 

"  Job  is  in  the  purest  Hebrew.  The  author  uses  only 
the  word  Eloldm  for  the  name  of  God.  The  compiler  or 
reviser  of  the  work,  Moses,  or  whoever  he  was,  employed 
at  the  heads  of  chapters  and  in  the  introductory  and  con- 
cluding portions  the  name  oi  Jehovah  ;  but  all  the  verses 
Avhere  Jehovah  occurs,  in  Job,  are  later  interpolations  in 
a  very  old  poem,  written  at  a  time  when  the  Semitic  race 
had  no  other  name  for  God  but  Elohim  ;  before  Moses 
obtained  the  elements  of  the  new  name  from  Egypt."  f 

Hale  says  : 

"  The  cardinal  constellations  of  spring  and  autumn,  in 
Job's  time,  were  Chima  and  Chesil,  or  Taurus  and  Scor- 
pio, of  which  the  principal  stars  are  Aldebaran,  the  Bull's 
Eye,  and  Antare,  the  Scorpion's  Heart.  Knowing,  there- 
fore, the  longitudes  of  these  stars  at  present,  the  interval 

*  "The  Patriarchal  Age,"  vol.  i,  p.  351. 

f  MS.  letter  to  the  author,  from  C.  S.  Bryant,  St.  Paul,  Minnesota. 


278  THE  LEGEXDS. 

of  time  from  thence  to  the  assumed  date  of  Job's  trial 
T\ill  give  the  difference  of  these  longitudes,  and  ascertain 
their  jjositions  then  with  respect  to  the  vernal  and  equi- 
noctial points  of  intersection  of  the  equinoctial  and  eclip- 
tic ;  according  to  the  usual  rate  of  the  precession  of  the 
equinoxes,  one  degree  in  seventy-one  years  and  a  half."* 

A  careful  calculation,  based  on  these  principles,  has 
proved  that  this  period  was  2338  b.  c.  According  to  the 
Septuagint,  in  the  opinion  of  George  Smith,  Job  lived,  or 
the  book  of  Job  was  written,  from  2650  b.  c.  to  2250  b.  c. 
Or  the  events  described  may  have  occurred  25,740  years 
before  that  date. 

It  appears,  therefore,  that  the  book  of  Job  was  written, 
even  according  to  the  calculations  of  the  orthodox,  long 
before  the  time  of  Abraham,  the  founder  of  the  Jewish 
nation,  and  hence  could  not  have  been  the  work  of  3Ioses 
or  any  other  Hebrew.  Mr.  Smith  thinks  that  it  was  pro- 
duced soon  after  the  Flood,  by  an  Arabian.  lie  finds  in 
it  many  proofs  of  great  antiquity.  He  sees  in  it  (xxxi, 
26,  28)  proof  that  in  Job's  time  idolatry  was  an  offense 
under  the  laws,  and  punishable  as  such  ;  and  he  is  satis- 
fied that  all  the  parties  to  the  great  dialogue  were  free 
from  the  taint  of  idolatry.     Mr.  Smith  says  : 

"  The  Babylonians,  Chaldeans,  Egyptians,  Canaanites, 
Midianites,  Ethiopians  of  Abyssinia,  Syrians,  and  other 
contemporary  nations,  had  sunk  into  gross  idolatry  long 
before  the  time  of  Moses." 

The  Arabians  were  an  important  branch  of  the  great 
Atlantean  stock  ;  they  derived  their  descent  from  the 
people  of  Add. 

"And  to  this  day  the  Arabians  declare  that  the  father 
of  Job  teas  the  founder  of  the  great  Arahlan  people.^'' j; 

*  Hale's  "  Chronology,"  vol.  ii,  p.  55. 
f  Smith's  "Sacred  Annals,"  vol.  i,  p.  360. 


THE  BOOK  OF  JOB.  279 

Again,  the  same  author  says  : 

"  Job  acted  as  high-priest  in  his  own  family  ;  and, 
minute  as  are  the  descriptions  of  the  different  classes  and 
usages  of  society  in  this  book,  we  have  not  the  slightest 
allusion  to  the  existence  of  any  priests  or  specially  ap- 
pointed ministers  of  religion,  a  fact  xclncli  shows  the  ex- 
treme antlqulti/  of  the  period,  as  priests  were,  in  all  prob- 
ability, first  appointed  about  the  time  of  Abraham,  and 
became  general  soon  after."* 

He  might  have  added  that  priests  were  known  among 
the  Egyptians  and  Babylonians  and  Phoenicians  from  the 
very  beginning  of  their  history. 

Dr.  JMagee  says  : 

"If,  in  short,  there  be  on  the  whole,  that  genuine  air 
of  the  antique  which  those  distinguished  scholars,  Schul- 
tens,  Lowth,  and  Michaelis,  afiirm  in  every  respect  to  per- 
vade the  work,  we  can  scarcely  hesitate  to  pronounce, 
with  Lowth  and  Sherlock,  that  the  book  of  Job  is  the 
oldest  in  the  xcorld  now  extanty  \ 

Moreover,  it  is  evident  that  this  ancient  hero,  although 
he  probably  lived  before  Babylon  and  Assyria,  before 
Troy  was  known,  before  Greece  had  a  name,  nevertheless 
dwelt  in  the  midst  of  a  high  civilization. 

"The  various  arts,  the  most  recondite  sciences,  the 
most  remarkable  productions  of  earth,  in  respect  of  ani- 
mals, vegetables,  and  minei'als,  the  classified  arrangement 
of  the  stars  of  heaven,  are  all  noticed." 

Not  only  did  Job's  people  possess  an  alphabet,  but 
books  were  written,  characters  were  engraved  ;  and  some 
have  even  gone  so  far  as  to  claim  that  the  art  of  printing 
was  known,  because  Job  says,  "  Would  that  my  words 
were  printed  in  a  book  !  " 

*  Smith's  "  Sacred  Annals,"  p.  364. 

f  ilagee  "  On  the  Atonement,"  vol.  ii,  p.  84. 


280  THE  LEGENDS. 

The  literary  excellence  of  the  work  is  of  the  highest 
order.     Lowth  says  : 

"  The  antiquary,  or  the  critic,  who  has  been  at  the 
pains  to  trace  the  history  of  the  Grecian  drama  from  its 
first  weak  and  imperfect  efforts,  and  has  carefully  ob- 
served its  tardy  progress  to  perfection,  will  scarcely,  I 
think,  without  astonishment,  contemplate  a  poem  pro- 
duced so  many  ages  before,  so  elegant  in  its  design,  so 
regular  in  its  structure,  so  animated,  so  affecting,  so  near 
to  the  true  dramatic  model  ;  Avhile,  on  the  contrary,  the 
united  wisdom  of  Greece,  after  ages  of  study,  was  not 
able  to  produce  anything  approaching  to  perfection  in  this 
walk  of  poetry  before  the  time  of  iEschylus."  * 

Smith  says  : 

"  The  debate  rises  high  above  earthly  things  ;  the  way 
and  will  and  providential  dealings  of  God  are  investi- 
gated. ^Vll  this  is  done  with  the  greatest  propriety,  with 
the  most  consummate  skill  ;  and,  notwithstanding  the 
expression  of  some  erroneous  opinions,  all  is  under  the 
influence  of  a  devout  and  sanctified  temper  of  mind."  f 

Has  this  most  ancient,  wonderful,  and  lofty  work, 
breathing  the  spirit  of  primeval  times,  its  origin  lost  in 
the  night  of  ages,  testifying  to  a  high  civilization  and  a 
higher  moral  development,  has  it  anything  to  do  with 
that  event  which  lay  far  beyond  the  Flood  ? 

If  it  is  a  drama  of  Atlantean  times,  it  must  have 
passed  through  many  hands,  through  many  ages,  through 
many  tongues,  before  it  reached  the  Isi'aelites.  We  may 
expect  its  original  meaning,  therefore,  to  appear  through 
it  only  like  the  light  through  clouds  ;  we  may  expect  that 
later  generations  would  modify  it  Avith  local  names  and 
allusions  ;  we  may  expect  that  they  would  even  strike 
out  parts  whose  meaning  they  failed  to  understand,  and 

*  "Hebrew  Poetry,"  lecture  xxxiii.        f  "Sacred  Annals,"  vol.  i,  p.  365. 


THE  BOOK  OF  JOB.  281 

interpolate  others.  It  is  believed  that  the  opening  and 
closing  parts  are  additions  made  in  a  subsequent  age.  If 
they  could  not  comprehend  how  the  fire  from  heaven  and 
the  whirlwind  could  have  so  utterly  destroyed  Job's  sheep, 
servants,  property,  and  family,  they  would  bring  in  those 
desert  accessories,  Sabgean  and  Chaldean  robbers,  to  carry 
away  the  camels  and  the  oxen. 

What  is  the  meaning  of  the  whole  poem  ? 

God  gives  over  the  government  of  the  world  for  a 
time  to  Satan,  to  work  his  devilish  will  upon  Job.  Did 
not  God  do  this  very  thing  when  he  permitted  the  comet 
to  strike  the  earth  ?  Satan  in  Arabic  means  a  serjDent. 
"  Going  to  and  fro  "  means  in  the  Arabic  in  "the  heat  of 
baste "  ;  Umbreit  translates  it,  "  from  a  flight  over  the 
earth.'''' 

Job  may  mean  a  man,  a  tribe,  or  a  whole  nation. 

From  a  condition  of  great  prosperity  Job  is  stricken 
down,  in  an  instant,  to  the  utmost  depths  of  poverty  and 
distress  ;  and  the  chief  agency  is  "  fire  from  heaven  "  and 
great  wind-storms. 

Does  this  typify  the  fate  of  the  world  when  the  great 
catastrophe  occurred  ?  Does  the  debate  between  Job  and 
his  three  visitors  represent  the  discussion  which  took  place 
in  the  hearts  of  the  miserable  remnants  of  mankind,  as 
they  lay  hid  in  caverns,  touching  God,  his  power,  his 
goodness,  his  justice  ;  and  whether  or  not  this  world- 
appalling  calamity  was  the  result  of  the  sins  of  the  peo- 
ple or  otherwise  ? 

Let  us  see  what  glimpses  of  these  things  we  can  find 
in  the  text  of  the  book. 

When  Job's  afilictions  fall  upon  him  he  curses  his  day 
— the  day,  as  commonly  understood,  wherein  he  was  born. 
But  how  can  one  curse  a  past  period  of  time  and  ask  the 
darkness  to  cover  it  ? 


282  THE  LEGENDS. 

The  original  text  is  probably  a  reference  to  the  events 
that  were  then  transpiring  : 

"Let  that  day  he  turned  into  darkness ;  let  not  God 
regard  it  from  above  ;  and  let  not  the  light  shine  xqion  it. 
Let  darkness  and  the  shadoio  of  death  cover  it ;  let  a  mist 
overspread  it,  and  let  it  be  wrapped  up  in  bitterness.  Let 
a  darksome  lohirlicind  seize  upon  that  night.  .  .  .  Let 
them  curse  it  who  curse  the  day,  who  are  ready  to  raise 
up  a  leviathan.'''"^' 

De  Dieu  says  it  should  read,  "And  thou,  leviathan, 
rouse  up."  "  Let  a  mist  overspread  it "  ;  literally,  "  let  a 
gathered  mass  of  dark  clouds  cover  it." 

"  The  Fathers  generally  understand  the  devil  to  be 
meant  by  the  leviathan." 

We  shall  see  that  it  means  the  fiery  dragon,  the  comet : 

"Let  the  stars  be  darkened  icith  the  mist  thereof  •  let 
it  expect  light  and  not  see  it,  nor  the  rising  of  the  dawning 
of  the  dayy  \ 

In  other  words,  Job  is  not  imprecating  future  evils  on 
a  past  time — an  impossibility,  an  absurdity  :  he  is  de- 
scribing the  events  then  transpiring — the  whirlwind,  the 
darkness,  the  naist,  the  day  that  does  not  come,  and  the 
leviathan,  the  demon,  the  comet. 

Job  seems  to  regret  that  he  has  escaped  with  his  life  : 

"  For  now,"  he  says,  "  shoidd  I  have  lain  still  and  been 
quiet,""  (if  I  had  not  fled)  ;  "  I  should  have  slept  :  then  had 
I  been  at  rest,  with  kings  and  counsellors  of  the  earth, 
which  built  desolate  places  for  themselves  ;  or  with 
princes  that  had  gold,  who  filled  their  houses  with  silver."  J 

Job  looks  out  over  the  whole  world,  swept  bare  of  its 
inhabitants,  and  I'egrets  that  he  did  not  stay  and  bide  the 


*  Douay  version,  chapter  iii,  verses  4-8.  f  Ibid.,  verse  9. 

\  King  James's  version,  chapter  iii,  verses  13-1  a 


THE  BOOK  OF  JOB.  283 

pelting  of  the  pitiless  storm,  as,  if  he  had  clone  so,  he  would 
be  now  lying  dead  with  kings  and  counselors,  who  built 
places  for  themselves,  now  made  desolate,  and  with 
princes  who,  despite  their  gold  and  silver,  have  perished. 
Kings  and  counselors  do  not  build  "  desolate  places  "  for 
themselves  ;  they  build  in  the  heart  of  great  communities  ; 
in  the  midst  of  populations  :  the  places  may  become  deso- 
late afterwai'd. 

Eliphaz  the  Temanite  seems  to  think  that  the  suffer- 
ings of  men  are  due  to  their  sins.     He  says  : 

"  Even  as  I  have  seen,  they  that  plough  wickedness 
and  sow  wickedness,  reap  the  same.  By  the  blast  of  God 
they  perish,  and  by  tlie  breath  of  his  nostrils  are  they  con- 
sumed. The  roaring  of  the  lion,  and  the  voice  of  the  fierce 
lion,  and  the  teeth  of  the  young  lions  are  broken.  T7ie 
old  lion  perisheth  for  lack  of  prey,  and  the  stout  lion's 
whelps  are  scattered  abroad." 

Certainly,  this  seems  to  be  a  picture  of  a  great  event. 
Here  again  the  fire  of  God,  that  consumed  Job's  sheep 
and  servants,  is  at  work  ;  even  the  fiercest  of  the  wild 
beasts  are  suffering  :  the  old  lion  dies  for  want  of  prey, 
and  its  young  ones  are  scattered  abroad. 

Eliphaz  continues  : 

"  In  thoughts,  from  the  visions  of  the  night,  when 
deep  sleep  falleth  on  men,  fear  came  upon  me,  and  trem- 
bling, which  made  all  my  bones  to  shake.  Then  a  spirit 
jjassed  before  my  face,  the  hair  of  my  flesh  stood  up." 

A  voice  spake  : 

"Shall  mortal  man  be  more  just  than  God?  Shall  a 
man  be  more  pure  than  his  Maker?  Behold  he  put  no 
trust  in  his  servants,  and  his  angels  he  charged  with 
folly  :  How  much  less  them  that  dwell  in  houses  of 
clay,  whose  foundation  is  in  the  dust,  which  are  crushed 
before  the  moth.  They  are  destroyed  from  morning  to 
evening  ^  they  perish  for  ever  iciihout  any  regarding  it.''"' 


284  THE  LEGENDS. 

The  moth  can  crush  notliing,  therefore  M.aurer  thinks 
it  should  read,  "  crushed  like  the  moth."  "  They  are  de- 
stroyed," etc.  ;  literally,  "they  are  broken  to  pieces  in  the 
space  of  «  day.''''  * 

All  through  the  text  of  Job  we  have  allusions  to  the 
catastrophe  which  had  fallen  on  the  earth  (chap,  v,  3)  : 

"  I  have  seen  the  foolish  taking  root  :  but  suddenly 
I,"  (God,)  "  cursed  his  habitation." 

"  4.  His  children  are  far  from  safety,"  (far  from  any 
place  of  refuge  ?)  "  and  they  are  crushed  in  the  gate, 
neither  is  there  any  to  deliver  them. 

"  5.  Whose  harvest  the  hungry  eateth  up,  and  taketh 
it  even  out  of  the  thorns,  and  the  robber  swalloweth  up 
their  substance." 

That  is  to  say,  in  the  general  confusion  and  terror  the 
harvests  are  devoured,  and  there  is  no  respect  for  the 
rights  of  property. 

"  G.  Although  affliction  cometh  not  forth  of  the  dust, 
neither  doth  trouble  spring  out  of  the  ground.'''' 

In  the  Douay  version  it  reads  : 

"Nothing  on  earth  is  done  without  a  cause,  and 
sorrow  doth  not  spring  out  of  the  ground  "  (v,  6). 

I  take  this  to  mean  that  the  affliction  which  has  fall- 
en upon  men  comes  not  out  of  the  ground,  but  from 
above. 

"7.  Yet  man  is  born  unto  trouble,  as  the  sparks  fly 
upward?'' 

In  the  Hebrew  we  read  for  sparks,  "  sous  of  flame  or 
burning  coal."  Maurer  and  Gescnius  say,  "As  the  sons 
of  lightning  fly  high"  ;  or,  "troubles  are  many  and  fiery 
as  sparks." 

*  Faussett's  "Commentary,"  iii,  40. 


THE  BOOK  OF  JOB.  285 

"8.  I  would  seek  unto  God,  and  unto  God  v.ould  I 
commit  my  cause  ; 

"9.  Which  doeth  great  things  and  unsearchable  ; 
marvellous  things  without  number  : 

"  10.  Who  glveth  rain  upon  the  earth,  and  sendeth 
waters  upon  the  fields.'''' 

Rain  here  signifies  the  great  floods  which  cover  the 
earth. 

"  11.  To  set  up  on  high  those  that  be  low  ;  that  those 
which  mourn  may  be  exalted  to  safety.'''' 

That  is  to  say,  the  poor  escape  to  the  high  places — to 
safety — while  the  great  and  crafty  perish. 

"  12.  He  disapi^ointeth  the  devices  of  the  crafty,  so 
that  their  hands  can  not  perform  their  enterprise. 

"  13.  He  taketh  the  wise  in  their  own  craftiness," 
(that  is,  in  the  very  midst  of  their  planning,)  "  and  the 
counsel  of  the  froward  is  carried  headlong,''''  (that  is,  it  is 
instantly  overwhelmed). 

"  14.  They  meet  with  darkness  i:n^  the  day-time, 
and  grope  in  the  noonday  as  in  the  night.''''     (Chap,  v.) 

Surely  all  this  is  extraordinary — the  troubles  of 
mankind  come  from  above,  not  from  the  earth  ;  the 
children  of  the  wicked  are  crushed  in  the  gate,  far  from 
places  of  refuge  ;  the  houses  of  the  wicked  are  "  crushed 
before  the  moth,"  those  that  plow  wickedness  "  perish," 
by  the  "blast  of  God's  nostrils  they  are  consumed";  the 
old  lion  pei'ishes  for  want  of  prey,  and  its  whelps  are 
scattered  abroad.  Eliphaz  sees  a  vision,  (the  comet,) 
which  "  makes  his  bones  to  shake,  and  the  hair  of  his  flesh 
to  stand  up";  the  people  "  are  destroyed  from  morning  to 
evening";  the  cunning  find  their  craft  of  no  avail,  but 
are  taken  ;  the  counsel  of  the  froward  is  carried  head- 
long ;  the  poor  find  safety  in  high  places  ;  and  darkness 
comes  in  midday,  so  that  the  people  grope  their  way  ; 


286  THE  LEGENDS. 

and  Job's  children,  servants,  and  animals  are  destroyed  by 
a  fire  from  heaven,  and  by  a  great  wind. 

Eliphaz,  like  the  pi'iests  in  the  Aztec  legend,  thinks 
he  sees  in  all  this  the  chastening  hand  of  God  : 

"  17.  Behold,  happy  is  the  man  whom  God  correcteth  : 
therefore  despise  not  thou  the  chastening  of  the  Almighty : 

"  18.  For  he  maketh  sore,  and  bindeth  up  :  he  \oound- 
eth,  and  his  hands  make  whole."     (Chap,  v.) 

We  are  reminded  of  the  Aztec  prayer,  where  allusion 
is  made  to  the  wounded  and  sick  in  the  cave  "  whose 
mouths  were  full  of  earth  and  scurf."  Doubtless,  thou- 
sands were  crushed,  and  cut,  and  wounded  by  the  falling 
stones,  or  burned  by  the  fire,  and  some  of  them  were 
carried  by  relatives  and  friends,  or  found  their  own  way, 
to  the  shelter  of  the  caverns. 

"20.  \\\  famine  he  shall  redeem  thee  from  death  :  and 
in  war  from  the  power  of  the  sword. 

"21.  Thou  shalt  he  hid  from  the  scourge  of  the 
tongue  :  neither  shalt  thou  be  afraid  of  destruction  when 
it  Cometh."     (Chap,  v.) 

"  The  scourge  of  the  tongue  "  has  no  meaning  in  this 
context.  There  has  probably  been  a  mistranslation  at 
some  stage  of  the  history  of  the  poem.  The  idea  is, 
probably,  "You  are  hid  in  safety  from  the  scourge  of 
the  comet,  from  the  tongues  of  flame  ;  you  need  not  be 
afraid  of  the  destruction  that  is  raging  without." 

"22.  At  destruction  and  famine  thou  shalt  laugh: 
neither  shalt  thou  be  afraid  of  the  beasts  of  the  earth. 

"  23.  For  thou  shalt  be  in  league  with  the  stones  of 
THE  FIELD  :  and  the  beasts  of  the  field  shall  be  at  peace 
with  theey     (Chap,  v.) 

That  is  to  say,  as  in  the  Aztec  legend,  the  stones  of 
the  field  have  killed  some  of  the  beasts  of  the  earth,  "  the 
lions  have  perished,"  and  their  whelps  have  been  scat- 


THE  BOOK  OF  JOB.  287 

tered  ;  the  stones  have  thus  been  your  friends  ;  and  other 
beasts  have  fled  with  you  into  these  caverns,  as  in  the 
Navajo  tradition,  where  you  may  be  able,  living  upon 
them,  to  defy  famine. 

Now  it  may  be  said  that  all  this  is  a  strained  construc- 
tion ;  but  what  construction  can  be  substituted  that  will 
make  sense  of  these  allusions  ?  How  can  the  stones  of 
the  field  be  in  league  with  man  ?  How  does  the  ordinary 
summer  rain  falling  on  the  earth  set  up  the  low  and  de- 
stroy the  wealthy  ?  And  what  has  all  this  to  do  with  a 
darkness  that  cometh  in  the  day-time  in  which  the  wicked 
gi'ope  helplessly  ? 

But  the  allusions  continue  : 

Job  cries  out,  in  the  next  chajDter  (chap,  vi) 

"  2.  Oh  that  my  grief  "  (my  sins  whereby  I  deserved 
wrath)  "  were  thoroughly  weighed,  and  my  calamity  laid 
in  the  balances  together  ! 

"  3.  As  the  sands  of  the  sea  this  icould  appear  heavier, 
therefore  my  words  are  full  of  sorrow.     (Douay  version.) 

"4.  For  the  arrows  of  the  Almighty  are  icithin  me, 
the  jjoison  whereof  drinketh  up  my  sj^irit  :  the  terrors  of 
God  do  set  themselves  in  array  against  me  "  ("  war  against 
me" — Douay  ver.). 

That  is  to  say,  disaster  comes  down  heavier  than  the 
sands — the  gravel  of  the  sea  ;  I  am  wounded  ;  the  arrows 
of  God,  the  darts  of  fire,  have  stricken  me.  We  find  in 
the  American  legends  the  descending  debris  constantly 
alluded  to  as  "  stones,  arrows,  and  spears  ";  I  am  poisoned 
with  the  foul  exhalations  of  the  comet  ;  the  terrors  of 
God  are  arrayed  against  me.  All  this  is  comprehensible 
as  a  description  of  a  great  disaster  of  nature,  but  it  is 
extravagant  language  to  apply  to  a  mere  case  of  boils. 

"  9.  Even  that  it  would  please  God  to  destroy  me ; 
that  he  would  let  loose  his  hand  and  cut  me  off." 


288  THE  LEGEXDS. 

The  commentators  say  that  "  to  destroy  me "  means 
literally  "to  grmd  or  crush  me."     (Chap,  vi.) 
Job  despairs  of  final  escape  : 

"  11.  What  is  my  strength  that  I  can  hold  out?  And 
what  is  my  end  that  I  should  keep  patience  ?"     (Douay.) 

"  12.  Is  my  strength  the  strength  of  stones?  Or  is  my 
flesh  of  brass  ?  " 

That  is  to  say,  how  can  I  ever  hold  out  ?  How  can  I 
ever  survive  this  great  tempest  ?  How  can  my  strength 
stand  the  crushing  of  these  stones  ?  Is  my  flesh  brass, 
that  it  will  not  burn  up  ?  Can  I  live  in  a  world  where 
such  things  are  to  continue  ? 

And  here  follow  allusions  which  are  remarkable  as 
occurring  in  an  Arabian  composition,  in  a  land  of  torrid 
heats  : 

"  15.  My  brethren "  (my  fellow-men)  "  have  dealt 
deceitfully"  (have  sinned)  "as  a  brook,  and  as  the  stream 
of  brooks  they  pass  aicay. 

"  16.  Which  are  blackish  by  reason  of  the  ice,  and 
wherein  the  snoic  is  hid, 

"  17.  What  time  they  Avax  icarm,  they  vanish  :  when 
it  is  hot,  they  are  consumed  out  of  their  place. 

"  18.  The  paths  of  their  way  are  turned  aside  ;  they 
go  to  nothing  and  perishP 

The  Douay  version  has  it : 

"IG.  They"  (the  people)  "that  fear  the  hoary  frost, 
the  snoio  shall  fall  upon  them. 

"  17.  At  the  time  lohen  they  shall  he  scattered  they 
shall  jyerish  ;  and  after  it  groiceth  hot  they  shall  he  melted 
out  of  their  place. 

"■  18.  The  paths  of  their  steps  are  entangled  ;  they 
shall  walk  in  vain  and  shall  perish.^'' 

There  is  a  great  deal  of  perishing  here — some  by  frost 
and  snow,  some  by  heat  ;  the  people  are  scattered,  they 
lose  their  way,  they  perish. 


THE  BOOK  OF  JOB.  289 

Job's  servants  and  sheep  were  also  consumed  in  their 
place  ;  tJiey  came  to  naught,  they  perished. 

Job  begins  to  think,  like  the  Aztec  priest,  that  possi- 
bly the  human  race  has  reached  its  limit  and  is  doomed 
to  annihilation  (chap,  vii)  : 

"1.  Is  there  not  an  appointed  time  to  man  upon  earth  ? 
Are  not  his  days  also  like  the  days  of  an  hireling  ?  " 

Is  it  not  time  to  discharge  the  race  from  its  labors  ? 

"  4.  "When  I  lie  down,  I  say,  When  shall  I  arise,  and 
the  nir/ht  he  gone  ?  and  I  am  full  of  tossings  to  and  fro 
unto  the  dawning  of  the  dayP 

He  draws  a  picture  of  his  hopeless  condition,  shut  up 
in  the  cavern,  never  to  see  the  light  of  day  again. 
(Douay  ver.,  chap,  vii)  : 

"  12.  Am  I  sea  or  a  whale,  that  thou  hast  inclosed  me 
in  a  prison  f  " 

"  7.  My  eyes  shall  not  return  to  see  good  things. 

"  8.  Nor  shall  the  sight  of  man  behold  me  ;  thy  eyes 
are  upon  me,  and  I  shall  be  no  more  "  ;  (or,  as  one  trans- 
lates it,  thy  mercy  shall  come  too  late  when  I  shall  be  no 
more.) 

"  9.  As  a  cloud  is  consumed  and  passeth  away,  so  he 
that  shall  go  down  to  hell "  (or  the  grave,  the  cavern) 
"  shall  not  come  up. 

"  10.  Nor  shall  he  return  any  more  into  his  house, 
neither  shall  his  place  know  him  any  more." 

How  strikingly  does  this  remind  one  of  the  Druid 
legend,  given  on  page  135,  ante : 

"  The  profligacy  of  mankind  had  provoked  the  Great 
Supreme  to  send  a  pestilential  wind  upon  the  earth.  A 
pure  poison  descended,  evei-y  blast  was  death.  At  this 
time  the  patriarch,  distinguished  for  his  integrity.,  was 
shut  up,  together  with  his  select  company,  in  the  inclosure 
Avith  the  strong  door.  Here  the  just  ones  were  safe  from 
injury.  Presently  a  tempest  of  fire  arose,"  etc. 
14 


290  THE  LEGENDS. 

Who  can  doubt  that  these  widely  separated  legends 
refer  to  the  same  event  and  the  same  j^atriarch  ? 

Job  meditates  suicide,  just  as  we  have  seen  in  the 
American  legends  that  hundreds  slew  themselves  under 
the  terror  of  the  time  : 

"  21.  For  now  shall  I  sleep  in  the  dust  ;  and  thou 
shalt  seek  me  in  the  morning,  but  I  shall  not  be." 

The  Chaldaie  version  gives  iis  the  sixteenth  and  sev- 
enteenth verses  of  chapter  viii  as  follows  : 

"  The  sun  is  no  sooner  risen  with  a  burning  heat  but 
it  withereth  the  grass,  and  the  flower  thereof  faileth,  and 
the  grace  of  the  fashion  of  it  perisheth,  so  also  shall  the 
rich  man  fade  away  in  his  ways." 

And  then  Job  refers  to  the  power  of  God,  seeming  to 
paint  the  cataclysm  (chap,  ix)  : 

"  5.  Which  removeth  the  mountains,  and  they  know 
not  :  which  overturneth  them  in  his  anger. 

"6.  Which  shal-eth  the  earth  out  of  her  place,  and  the 
^nllars  thereof  Xx^vcsSAq. 

"7.  Which  commandeth  the  sun,  and  it  rlseth  not  • 
and  secdeth  tip  the  stars. 

"  8.  Which  alone  spreadeth  out  the  heavens  and  tread- 
eth  upon  the  leaves  of  the  sea.'" 

All  this  is  most  remarkable  :  here  is  the  delineation 
of  a  great  catastrophe — the  mountains  are  removed  and 
leveled  ;  the  earth  shakes  to  its  foundations  ;  the  sun 
fails  to  appear,  and  the  stars  are  sealed  up.  How  ?  In 
the  dense  masses  of  clouds  ? 

Surely  this  does  not  describe  the  ordinary  manifesta- 
tions of  God's  power.  When  has  the  sun  refused  to 
rise  ?  It  can  not  refer  to  the  story  of  Joshua,  for  in  that 
case  the  sun  was  in  the  heavens  and  refrained  from  set- 
ting ;  and  Joshua's  time  was  long  subsequent  to  that  of 
Job.     But  when  we  take  this  in  connection  with  the  fire 


THE  BOOK  OF  JOB.  291 

falling  from  heaven,  the  great  wind,  the  destruction  of 
men  and  animals,  the  darkness  that  came  at  midday,  the 
ice  and  snow  and  sands  of  the  sea,  and  the  stones  of  the 
field,  and  the  fact  that  Job  is  shut  up  as  in  a  prison,  never 
to  return  to  his  home  or  to  the  light  of  day,  we  see  that 
peering  through  the  little-understood  context  of  this  most 
ancient  poem  are  the  disjointed  reminiscences  of  the  age 
of  fire  and  gravel.  It  sounds  like  the  cry  not  of  a  man 
but  of  a  race,  a  great,  religious,  civilized  race,  w^ho  could 
not  understand  how  God  could  so  cruelly  visit  the  world  ; 
and  out  of  their  misery  and  their  terror  sent  up  this  piti- 
ful yet  sublime  appeal  for  mercy. 

"  13,  If  God  will  not  withdraw  his  anger,  the  proud 
heli^ers  do  stoop  under  him." 

One  commentator  makes  this  read  : 
"  Under  him  the  whales  below  heaven   bend,"  (the 
crooked  leviathan  ?) 

"  17.  For  he  shall  crush  me  in  a  xohirlwind,  and  multi- 
plieth  my  wounds  even  without  cause."     (Douay  ver.) 

And  Job  can  not  recognize  the  doctrine  of  a  special 
providence  ;  he  says  : 

"  22.  This  is  one  thing "  (therefore  I  said  it).  "  He 
destroy eth  the  perfect  and  the  wicked. 

*'23.  If  the  scourge  slay  suddenly,  he  will  laugh  at  the 
trial  of  the  innocent. 

"24.  The  earth  is  given  into  the  hands  of  the  tiyicked : 
he  covereth  the  faces  of  the  judges  thereof  ;  if  it  be  not 
him,  who  is  it  then  ?"     (Douay  ver.) 

That  is  to  say,  God  has  given  uj)  the  earth  to  the 
power  of  Satan  (as  appears  by  chapter  i)  ;  good  and  bad 
perish  together  ;  and  the  evil  one  laughs  as  the  scourge 
(the  comet)  slays  suddenly  the  innocent  ones  ;  the  very 
judges  who  should  have  enforced  justice  are  dead,  and 


292  'J'HE  LEGENDS. 

their  faces  covered  with  dust  and  ashes.     And  if  God 
has  not  done  this  terrible  deed,  who  has  done  it  ? 
And  Job  rebels  against  such  a  state  of  things  : 

"  34.  Let  him  take  his  rod  mcay  from  me,  and  let  not 
his  fear  terrify  me. 

"  35.  Then  I  would  speak  to  him  and  not  fear  him  ; 
but  it  is  not  so  with  me." 

What  rod — what  fear  ?  Surely  not  the  mere  physical 
affliction  which  is  popularly  supposed  to  have  constituted 
Job's  chief  grievance.  Is  the  "  rod  "  that  terrifies  Job  so 
that  he  fears  to  speak,  that  great  object  which  cleft  the 
heavens  ;  that  curved  wolf-jaw  of  the  Goths,  one  end  of 
which  rested  on  the  earth  while  the  other  touched  the 
sun  ?    Is  it  the  great  sword  of  Surt  ? 

And  here  we  have  another  (chap,  x)  allusion  to  the 
"  darkness,"  although  in  our  version  it  is  applied  to  death  : 

"21.  Before  I  go  whence  I  shall  not  return,  even  to 
the  land  of  darkness  and  the  shadow  of  death. 

"22.  A  land  of  darkness  as  darkness  itself,  and  of  the 
shadow  of  death,  tcithout  any  order,  and  ichere  the  light 
is  as  darkness.''^ 

Or,  as  the  Douay  version  has  it  : 

"21.  Before  I  go,  and  return  no  more,  to  a  land  that 
is  dark  and  covered  with  the  mist  of  death. 

"  22.  A  land  of  misery  and  darkness,  where  the  shadow 
of  death,  and  no  order  but  everlasting  horror  dwelleth.'''' 

This  is  not  death  ;  death  is  a  place  of  peace,  "  where 
the  wicked  ceased  from  troubling  "  ;  this  is  a  description 
of  the  chaotic  condition  of  things  on  the  earth  outside 
the  cave,  "without  any  order,"  and  where  even  the  feeble 
light  of  day  is  little  better  than  total  darkness.  Job 
thinks  he  might  just  as  well  go  out  into  this  dreadful 
world  and  end  it  all. 

Zophar  argues  (chap,  xi)  that  all  these  things  have 


THE  BOOK  OF  JOB.  293 

come  because  of  tlie  wickedness  of  the  people,  and  that 
it  is  all  right  : 

"  10.  If  he  cut  off  and  shut  up  and  gather  together, 
who  can  hinder  him  'i 

"  11.  For  he  knoweth  vain  men  :  he  seeth  wickedness 
also  ;  will  he  not  then  consider  it  ?  " 

"  If  he  cut  off,"  the  commentators  say,  means  liter- 
ally, "  If  he  pass  by  as  a  storm." 

That  is  to  say,  if  he  cuts  off  the  people,  (kills  them  by 
the  million,)  and  shuts  w^  a  few  in  caves,  as  Job  w^as  shut 
up  in  prison,  gathered  together  from  the  storm,  how  are 
you  going  to  help  it  ?  Hath  he  not  seen  the  vanity  and 
wickedness  of  man  ? 

And  Zophar  tells  Job  to  hope,  to  pray  to  God,  and 
that  he  will"  yet  escape  : 

"  16.  Because  thou  shalt  forget  thy  misery,  and  re- 
member it  as  waters  that  pass  aioay. 

"  17.  And  thine  age  shall  be  clearer  than  the  noon- 
day ;  thou  shalt  shine  forth,  thou  shalt  be  as  the  morning." 

"  Thou  shalt  shine  forth  "  Gesenius  renders,  "  though 
oioio  thou  art  in  darkness  thou  shalt  presently  be  as  the 
morning"  ;  that  is,  the  storm  w^ill  pass  and  the  light  re- 
turn. Umbreit  gives  it,  "  Thy  darkness  shall  be  as  the 
morning  ;  only  the  darkness  of  morning  twilight,  not 
nocturnal  darkness."  That  is.  Job  will  return  to  that 
dim  light  which  followed  the  Drift  Age. 

"  1 8.  And  thou  shalt  be  secure,  because  there  is  hope  ; 
yea,  tJiou  shalt  dig  about  thee,  and  thou  shalt  take  thy  rest 
in  safety." 

That  is  to  say,  when  the  waters  pass  away,  with  them 
shall  pass  away  thy  miseries  ;  the  sun  shall  yet  return 
bi-ighter  than  ever  ;  thou  shalt  be  secure  ;  thou  shalt  dig 
thy  xcay  out  of  these  caverns  /  and  then  take  thy  rest  in 


294  THE  LEGENDS. 

safety,  for  the  great  tempest  shall  have  passed  for  ever. 
We  are  told  by  the  commentators  that  the  words  "  about 
thee  "  are  an  interpolation. 

If  this  is  not  the  interpretation,  for  what  would  Job 
dig  about  him  ?  What  relation  can  digging  have  with 
the  disease  which  afflicted  Job  ? 

But  Job  refuses  to  receive  this  consolation.  He  re- 
fuses to  believe  that  the  tower  of  Siloam  fell  only  on  the 
wickedest  men  in  the  city.  He  refers  to  his  past  experi- 
ence of  mankind.  He  thinks  honest  poverty  is  without 
honor  at  the  hands  of  successful  f rarud.   He  says  (chap,  xii) : 

"  .5.  He  that  is  ready  to  slip  with  his  feet  is  as  a  lamp 
despised  in  the  thought  of  him  that  is  at  ease.'''' 

But— 

"  6.  The  tabernacles  of  robbers  prosper,  and  they  that 
provoke  God  are  secure  ;  into  whose  hand  God  bringeth 
abundantly." 

And  he  can  not  see  how,  if  this  calamity  has  come 
upon  men  for  their  sins,  that  the  innocent  birds  and  beasts, 
and  even  the  fish  in  the  heated  and  poisoned  waters,  are 
perishing  : 

"7.  But  ask  now  the  beasts,"  ("for  verily,"  he  has 
just  said,  "  ye  are  the  men,  and  wisdom  will  die  with 
you,")  "  and  they  shall  teach  thee  ;  and  the  fowls  of  the 
ah",  and  they  shall  tell  thee  : 

"  8.  Or  speak  to  the  earth,  and  it  shall  teach  thee  : 
and  the  fishes  of  the  sea  shall  declare  it  unto  thee. 

"  9.  Who  knoweth  not  in  all  these  that  the  hand  of 
the  Lord  hath  wrought  this  ?  " 

Wrought  what?  Job's  disease?  No.  Some  great 
catastrophe  to  bird  and  beast  and  earth. 

You  pretend,  he  says,  in  effect,  ye  wise  men,  that  only 
the  wicked  have  suffei-ed  ;  but  it  is  not  so,  for  aforetime 
I  have  seen  the  honest  poor  man  despised  and  the  villain 


THE  BOOK  OF  JOB.  295 

prosperous.  And  if  the  sins  of  men  have  brought  this 
catastrophe  on  the  earth,  go  ask  the  beasts  and  the  birds 
and  the  fish  and  the  very  face  of  the  suffering  earth, 
what  theij  have  done  to  provoke  this  wrath.  No,  it  is  the 
work  of  God,  and  of  God  alone,  and  he  gives  and  will 
give  no  reason  for  it. 

"  14.  Behold,  he  breaketh  down,  and  it  cannot  be  built 
up  again  ;  he  shutteth  up  a  man,  and  there  can  be  no 
opening. 

"  15.  Behold,  he  loithholdeth  the  waters,  and  they  dry  up: 
also,  he  sendeth  them  out,  and  they  overturn  the  earthP 

That  is  to  say,  the  heat  of  the  fire  from  heaven  sucks 
up  the  waters  until  rivers  and  lakes  are  dried  up  :  Cacus 
steals  the  cows  of  Hercules  ;  and  then  again  they  fall, 
deluging  and  overturning  the  earth,  piling  it  into  mount- 
ains in  one  place,  says  the  Tupi  legend,  and  digging  out 
valleys  in  another.  And  God  buries  men  in  the  caves  in 
which  they  sought  shelter, 

"  23.  He  increaseth  the  nations,  and  destroyeth  them  : 
he  enlargeth  the  nations,  and  sti'aiteneth  them  again. 

"2-1.  He  taketh  away  the  heart  of  the  chief  of  the 
people  of  the  earth,  and  causeth  them  to  wander  in  a 
loilderness  u'here  there  is  no  loay. 

"25.  They  grope  in  the  dark  without  light,  and  he 
maJceth  them  to  stagger  like  a  drunken  man.'''' 

More  darkness,  more  groping  in  the  dark,  more  of 
that  staggering  like  drunken  men,  described  in  the  Ameri- 
can legends  : 

"Lo,  mine  eye,"  says  Job,  (xiii,  1,)  "  hath  seen  all  this, 
mine  ear  hath  heard  and  understood  it.  What  ye  know, 
the  same  do  I  know  also." 

We  have  all  seen  it,  says  Job,  and  now  you  would 
come  here  w'ith  your  platitudes  about  God  sending  all 
this  to  punish  the  wicked  : 


296  THE  LEGENDS. 

"  4,  But  ye  are  forgers  of  lies,  ye  are  all  physicians  of 
no  value." 

Honest  Job  is  disgusted,  and  denounces  bis  counselors 
witb  Carlylean  vigor  : 

"11.  Shall  not  bis  excellency  make  you  afraid?  and 
his  dread  fall  upon  you  f 

"  12.  Your  remembrances  are  like  unto  ashes,  your 
bodies  to  bodies  of  clay. 

"  13.  Hold  your  peace,  let  me  alone,  that  I  may  speak, 
and  let  come  on  me  what  will. 

"  14.  Wherefore  do  I  take  my  flesh  in  my  teeth,  and 
put  my  life  in  mine  hand  ? 

"  15.  Though  he  slay  me,  yet  will  I  trust  in  him  :  but 
I  \oill  maintain  mine  own  ways  before  him." 

In  other  words,  I  don't  think  this  thing  is  right,  and, 
though  I  tear  my  flesh  with  my  teeth,  and  contemplate 
suicide,  and  though  I  may  be  slain  for  speaking,  yet  I 
will  speak  out,  and  maintain  that  God  ought  not  to  have 
done  this  thing  ;  he  ought  not  to  have  sent  this  horrible 
affliction  on  the  earth — this  Are  from  heaven,  which 
burned  up  my  cattle  ;  this  whirlwind  which  slew  my 
children  ;  this  sand  of  the  sea  ;  this  rush  of  floods  ;  this 
darkness  in  noonday  in  which  mankind  grope  heli^lessly  ; 
these  arrows,  this  poison,  this  rush  of  waters,  this  sweep- 
ing away  of  mountains. 

"If  I  hold  ray  tongue,"  says  Job,  "I  shall  give  up 
the  ghost  !  " 

Job  believes — 

"  The  grief  that  will  not  speak, 
Whispers  the  o'erfraught  heart,  and  bids  it  break." 

"  As  the  waters  fail  from  the  sea,"  says  Job,  (xiv,  11,) 
"  and  the  food  decay  eth  and  drieth  uj) : 

"  12.  So  man  lieth  dovm,  and  riseth  not :  till  the  heav- 
ens be  no  more,  they  shall  not  awake,  nor  be  raised  out  of 
their  sleep. 


THE  BOOK  OF  JOB.  297 

"  13.  O  that  thou  wouldest  huh  me  in  the  grave,  that 
thou  wouldest  keep  me  secret,  until  thy  v-rath  he  past,  that 
thou  wouldest  appoint  me  a  set  time,  and  remember  me  !  " 

What  does  this  mean  ?  When  in  history  have  the 
waters  failed  from  the  sea  ?  Job  believes  in  the  immor- 
tality of  the  soiil  (xix,  26)  :  "  Though  worms  destroy  this 
body,  yet  in  my  flesh  shall  I  see  God."  Can  these  words 
then  be  of  general  application,  and  mean  that  those  who 
lie  down  and  rise  not  shall  not  awake  for  ever  ?  No  ;  he 
is  simply  telling  that  when  the  conflagration  came  and 
dried  up  the  seas,  it  slaughtered  the  people  by  the  mill- 
ion ;  they  fell  and  perished,  never  to  live  again  ;  and  he 
calls  on  God  to  hide  him  in  a  grave,  a  tomb,  a  cavern — 
until  the  day  of  his  wrath  be  past,  and  then  to  remember 
him,  to  come  for  him,  to  let  him  out. 

"  20.  My  bone  cleaveth  to  my  skin  and  to  my  flesh, 
and  I  am  escaped  with  the  skin  of  my  teeth?'' 

Escaped  from  what?  From  his  physical  disease? 
No  ;  he  carried  that  with  him. 

But  Zophar  insists  that  there  is  a  special  providence 
in  all  these  things,  and  that  only  the  wicked  have  per- 
ished (chap,  xx)  : 

"  5.  The  triumphing  of  the  wicked  is  short,  and  the 
joy  of  the  hypocrite  but  for  a  moment." 

"  7.  Yet  he  shall  perish  for  ever  like  his  own  dung  : 
they  which  have  seen  him  shall  say,  Where  is  he  ?" 

"16.  He  shall  suck  the  poison  of  asps :  the  viper'' s 
tongue  shall  slay  himP 

How? 

"  23.  When  he  is  about  to  fill  his  belly,  God  shall  cast 
the  fury  of  his  icrath  upon  him,  and  shall  eain  it  upox 
iiiM,  while  he  is  eating. 

"  24.  He  shall  flee  from  the  iron  weapon,  and  the  bow 
of  steel  shall  strike  him  through. 


298  THE  LEGENDS. 

"  25,  It  is  drawn  and  cometh  oi;t  of  the  body  ;  yea, 
the  glittering  sword"  (the  comet  ?)  "cometh  out  of' his 
gall :  terrors  are  upon  him. 

"26.  All  darkness  shall  he  hid  in  his  secret  j^laces :  a 
fire  not  hloxmi  shall  consume  him.  .  .  . 

"27.  The  heavens  shall  reveal  his  iniquity ;  and  the 
earth  shall  rise  up  against  him. 

"  28,  The  increase  of  his  house  shall  depart,  and  his 
goods  shall  flow  away  in  the  day  of  his  wrath." 

What  does  all  this  mean  ?  "While  the  rich  man,  (nec- 
essarily a  wicked  man,)  is  eating  his  dinner,  God  shall 
rain  upon  him  a  consuming  fire,  a  fire  not  blown  by  man  ; 
he  shall  be  pierced  by  the  arrows  of  God,  the  earth  shall 
quake  under  his  feet,  the  heavens  shall  blaze  forth  his 
iniquity  ;  the  darkness  shall  be  hid,  shall  disappear,  in 
the  glare  of  the  conflagration  ;  and  his  substance  shall 
flow  away  in  the  floods  of  God's  wi'ath. 

Job  answers  him  in  powerful  language,  maintain- 
ing from  past  experience  his  position  that  the  wicked 
ones  do  not  suffer  in  this  life  any  more  than  the  virtuous 
(chap,  xxi) : 

"  Their  houses  are  safe  from  fear,  neither  is  the  rod  of 
God  upon  them.  Their  bull  gendereth,  and  faileth  not  ; 
their  cow  calveth,  and  casteth  not  her  calf.  They  send 
forth  their  little  ones  like  a  flock,  and  their  children  dance. 
They  spend  their  days  in  wealth,  and  in  a  moment  go 
doxon  to  the  grave.  Therefore  they  say  unto  God,  De- 
part from  us  ;  for  we  desire  not  the  knowledge  of  thy 
ways," 

And  here  we  seem  to  have  a  description  (chap,  xvi, 
Douay  ver.)  of  Job's  contact  with  the  comet  : 

"  9,  A  false  speaker  riseth  up  against  my  face,  contra- 
dicting me." 

That  is.  Job  had  always  proclaimed  the  goodness  of 
God,  and  here  comes  something  altogether  evil. 


THE  BOOK  OF  JOB.  299 

"10.  He  hath  gathered  together  his  fury  against 
me ;  and  threatening  me  he  hath  gnashed  with  his 
teeth  upon  me :  my  enemy  hath  beheld  me  loith  terrible 
eyes." 

"  14.  He  has  compassed  me  round  about  with  his 
lances,  he  hath  wounded  my  loins,  he  hath  not  spared,  he 
hath  poured  out  my  bowels  on  the  earth. 

"  15.  He  hath  torn  me  with  wound  upon  icound,  he 
hath  rushed  in  upon  me  UJxe  a  giants 

"  20.  For  behold  iug  tcitness  is  in  heaven,  and  he  that 
knoweth  my  conscience  is  on  high." 

It  is  impossible  to  understand  this  as  referring  to  a 
skin-disease,  or  even  to  the  contradictions  of  Job's  com- 
panions, Zophai",  Bildad,  etc. 

Something  rose  up  against  Job  that  comes  upon  him 
with  fury,  gnashes  his  teeth  on  him,  glares  at  him  with 
terrible  eyes,  surrounds  him  with  lances,  wounds  him  in 
every  part,  and  rushes  upon  him  like  a  giant ;  and  the 
witness  of  the  truth  of  Job's  statement  is  there  in  the 
heavens. 

Eliphaz  returns  to  the  charge.  He  rebukes  Job  and 
charges  him  with  many  sins  and  oppressions  (chap,  xxii)  : 

"  10.  Therefore  snares  are  ai'ound  about  thee,  and 
sudden  fear  trouhleth  thee  ; 

"  11.  Or  darkness,  that  thou  canst  not  see  ;  and  ahun- 
da7ice  of  icaters  cover  thee.'''' 

"  13.  And  thou  sayest,  How  doth  God  know  ?  Can 
he  judge  through  the  dark  cloud? 

"  14.  Thick  clouds  are  a  covering  to  him,  that  he  seeth 
not  ;  and  he  walketh  in  the  circuit  of  heaven. 

"  15.  Hast  thou  marked  the  old  way  which  wicked 
men  have  trodden  ? 

"  16.  Which  were  cut  down  out  of  time,  whose  foun- 
dation icas  overflown  icith  a  flood?'''' 

"  20.  Whereas  our  substance  is  not  cut  down,  but  the 
remnant  of  them  the  fire  consumeth.'''' 

"24.  He  shall  give  for  QdiVih  flint,  and  for  flint  torrents 
of  gokV     (Douay  ver.) 


300  THE  LEGENDS. 

What  is  the  meaning  of  all  this  ?  And  why  this  asso- 
ciation of  the  flint-stones,  referred  to  in  so  many  le- 
gends ;  and  the  gold  believed  to  have  fallen  from  heaven 
in  torrents,  is  it  not  all  wonderful  and  inexplicable  upon 
any  other  theory  than  that  which  I  suggest  ? 

"  30.  He  shall  deliver  the  island  of  the  innocent :  and 
it  is  delivered  by  the  pureness  of  thine  "  (Job's)  "  hands." 

What  does  this  mean  ?  Where  was  "  the  island  of 
the  innocent "  ?  What  was  the  way  which  the  wicked, 
who  did  not  live  on  "  the  island  of  the  innocent,"  had 
trodden,  but  which  was  swept  away  in  the  flood  as  the 
bridge  Bifrost  w^as  destroyed,  in  the  Gothic  legends,  by 
the  forces  of  MusiDclheim  ? 

And  Job  replies  again  (chap,  xxiii)  : 

"  10.  For  God  maketh  my  heart  soft,  and  the  Almighty 
troubleth  me  : 

"  17.  Because  I  was  not  cut  off  before  the  darJcness, 
neither  hath  he  covered  the  darkness  from  my  face." 

That  is  to  say,  why  did  I  not  die  before  this  great 
calamity  fell  on  the  earth,  and  before  I  saw  it  ? 
Job  continues  (chap,  xxvi)  : 

"5.  Dead  things  are  formed  from  under  the  icaters, 
and  the  inhabitants  thereof. 

"  6.  Jlell  is  naked  before  him,  and  destruction  hath  no 
covering. 

The  commentators  tell  us  that  the  words,  "  dead  things 
are  formed  under  the  waters,"  mean  literally,  "  the  souls 
of  the  dead  tremble  from  imder  the  waters." 

In  all  lands  the  home  of  the  dead  was,  as  I  have  shown 
elsewhere,*  beyond  the  waters  :  and  just  as  we  have  seen 
in  Ovid  that  Phaeton's  conflagration  burst  open  the  earth 

*  "Atlantis,"  359,  421,  etc. 


THE  BOOK  OF  JOB.  301 

and  disturbed  the  inhabitants  of  Tai'tarus ;  and  in  Ilesiod's 
narrative  that  the  ghosts  trembled  around  Phito  in  his 
dread  dominion  ;  so  here  hell  is  laid  bare  by  the  great 
catastrophe,  and  the  souls  of  the  dead  in  the  drowned 
Flood-land,  beneath  the  waters,  tremble. 

Surely,  all  these  legends  are  fragments  of  one  and  the 
same  great  story. 

"  7.  He  stretcheth  out  the  north  over  the  empty  place, 
and  hangeth  the  earth  upon  nothing. 

"  8.  He  hlndeth  up  the  loaters  in  his  thick  clouds  y  cmd 
the  cloud  is  not  rent  under  them.'''' 

The  clouds  do  not  break  with  this  unparalleled  load  of 
moisture. 

"  9.  lloiholdeth  bach  the  face  of  his  throne,  and  spread- 
eth  his  cloud  upon  it, 

"  10.  He  hath  compassed  the  waters  with  bounds,  unt'd 
the  day  and  flight  come  to  an  end. 

"11.  The  pillars  of  heaven  tremble,  and  are  aston- 
ished at  his  reproof. 

"  12.  He  divideth  the  sea  with  his  power,  and  by  his 
understanding  he  smiteth  through  the  proud."  ("  By  his 
wisdom  he  has  struck  the  proud  one." — Douay  ver.) 

"  13.  By  his  spirit  he  hath  garnished  the  heavens  ; 
his  hand  hath  formed  the  crooked  serpent.''''  ("  His  artful 
hand  brought  forth  the  winding  serpent." — Douay  ver.) 

AYhat  is  the  meaning  of  all  this  ?  The  dead  under 
the  waters  tremble  ;  hell  is  naked,  in  the  blazing  heat,  and 
destruction  is  uncovered  ;  the  north,  the  cold,  descends  on 
the  world  ;  the  waters  are  bound  up  in  thick  clouds  ;  the 
face  of  God's  throne,  the  sun,  is  hidden  by  the  clouds 
spread  upon  it ;  darkness  has  come,  day  and  night  are  all 
one  ;  the  earth  trembles  ;  he  has  lighted  up  the  heavens 
with  the  fiery  comet,  shaped  like  a  crooked  serpent,  but 
he  has  struck  him  as  Indra  struck  Vritra. 

How  else  can   these  words  be  interpreted  ?     "When 


302  THE  LEGENDS. 

otherwise  did  the  day  and  night  come  to  an  end  ?     "WTiat 
is  the  crooked  serpent  ? 

Job  continues,  (chap,  xxviii,)  and  speaks  in  an  enigmat- 
ical way,  V.  3,  of  "the  stones  of  darkness,  and  the  shadow 
of  death." 

"  4.  The  flood  breaketh  out  from  the  inhabitants  ;  even 
the  waters  forgotten  of  the  foot  :  thef/  are  dried  up,  they 
are  gone  away  from  men. 

"  5.  As  for  the  earth,  out  of  it  cometh  bread  :  and 
under  it  is  turned  up  as  it  tcerejire.'''' 

Maurer  and  Gesenius  translate  verse  4  in  a  way  won- 
derfully in  accord  with  my  theory  :  "  The  flood  breaketh 
out  from  the  inhabitants,"  they  render,  "a  shaft,  (or 
gulley-like  pit,)  is  broken  open  far  from  the  inhabitant, 
the  dweller  on  the  surface  of  the  earth."  *  This  is  doubt- 
less the  pit  in  which  Job  was  hidden,  the  nai-row-mouthed, 
bottomless  cave,  referred  to  hereafter.  And  the  words, 
"forgotten  of  the  foot,"  confirm  this  view,  for  the  high 
authorities,  just  cited,  tell  us  that  these  words  mean  liter- 
ally, "  unsupported  by  the  foot  thet  haxg  by  ropes  ix 
DESCENDING  ;  they  are  dried  up  ;  they  are  gone  away 
from  men."  f 

Here  we  have,  probably,  a  picture  of  Job  and  his 
companions  descending  by  ropes  into  some  great  cavern, 
"dried  up"  by  the  heat,  seeking  refuge,  far  from  the 
habitations  of  men,  in  some  "deep  shaft  or  gulley-like 
pit." 

And  the  words,  "  they  are  gone  away  from  men," 
Maurer  and  Gesenius  translate,  "  far  from  men  they  move 
with  uncertain  steps — they  stagger.''^  They  are  stumbling 
through  the  darkness,  hurrying  to  a  place  of  refuge,  pre- 
cisely as  narrated  in  the  Central  American  legends. 

*  Fausset's  "  Commentaries,"  vol.  iii,  p.  66.  f  Ibid. 


THE  BOOK  OF  JOB.  303 

This  is  according  to  the  King  James  version,  but  the 
Douay  version  gives  it  as  follows  : 

"  3.  He  hath  set  a  time  for  darkness,  and  the  eiid  of 
all  things  he  considereth  ;  the  sto7ie  also  that  is  in  the 
dark,  and  the  shadow  of  death. 

"  4.  The  flood  divideth  from  the  people  that  are  on 
their  journey,  those  whom  the  foot  of  the  needy  man  hath 
forgotten,  and  those  icho  cannot  he  come  at. 

"  5.  The  land  out  of  which  bread  grew  in  its  place, 
hath  been  overturned  xcithfireP 

That  is  to  say,  God  has  considered  whether  he  would 
not  make  an  end  of  all  things  :  he  has  set  a  time  for  dark- 
ness ;  in  the  dark  ai"e  the  stones  ;  the  flood  separates  the 
people  ;  those  who  are  escaping  are  divided  by  it  from 
those  who  were  forgotten,  or  who  are  on  the  other  side  of 
the  flood,  where  they  can  not  be  come  at.  But  the  land 
where  formerly  bread  grew,  the  land  of  the  agricultural 
people,  the  civilized  land,  the  plain  of  Ida  where  grev,'  the 
apples,  the  plain  of  Yigrid  where  the  great  battle  took 
place,  that  has  been  overturned  by  fire. 

And  this  land  the  next  verse  tells  us  : 

"  6.  The  stones  of  it  are  the  place  of  sapphires,  and 
the  clods  of  it"  (King  James,  "dust")  "are  gold." 

We  are  again  reminded  of  those  legends  of  America 
and  Europe  where  gold  and  jewels  fell  from  heaven  among 
the  stones.  We  are  reminded  of  the  dragon-guarded 
hoards  of  the  ancient  myths. 

The  Douay  version  says  : 

"9.  He"  (God)  "has  stretched  out  his  hand  to  the 
flint,  he  hath  overturned  mountains  from  the  7'oots.^^ 

What  is  the  meaning  of  flint  here  ?  And  why  this 
recurrence  of  the  word  flint,  so  common  in  the  Central 
American  legends  and  religions  ?     And  when  did  God  in 


304  THE  LEGENDS. 

the  natural  order  of  things  overturn  mountains  by  the 
roots  ? 

And  Job  (chap,  xxx,  Douay  version)  describes  the 
condition  of  the  multitude  who  had  at  first  mocked  him, 
and  the  description  recalls  vividly  the  Central  American 
pictures  of  the  poor  starving  wanderers  who  followed  the 
Drift  Age  : 

"  3.  Barren  with  want  and  hunger,  who  gnawed  in  the 
wilderness,  disfigi(red  tcith  calamity  and  misery. 

"  4.  And  they  ate  grass,  and  harJcs  of  trees,  and  the 
root  of  junipers  teas  their  food. 

"  5.  Who  snatched  up  these  things  out  of  the  valleys, 
and  ichen  they  had  found  any  of  them,  they  ran  to  them 
with  a  cry. 

"  6.  They  dwelt  in  the  desert  places  of  torrents,  and 
in  caves  of  the  earth,  or  upon  the  gravel." 

Is  not  all  this  wonderful  ? 

In  the  King  James  version,  verse  3  reads  : 

"  3.  For  want  and  famine  they  were  solitary,  fleeing 
into  the  wilderness,  in  former  time,  desolate  and  waste." 

The  commentators  say  that  the  words,  "in  former 
time,  desolate  and  Avaste,"  mean  literally,  '■'■  the  yesternight 
of  desolation  and  waste.'''' 

Job  is  describing  the  condition  of  the  people  immedi- 
ately following  the  catastrophe,  not  in  some  remote  past. 

And  again  Job  says  (Douay  version,  chap,  xxx)  : 

"  12.  .  .  .  My  calamities  forthwith  arose  ;  they  have 
overthrown  my  feet,  and  have  overwhelmed  me  with  their 
paths  as  with  waves,  .  .  , 

"  14.  They  have  rushed  in  upon  me  as  when  a  Avail  is 
broken,  and  a  gate  opened,  and  have  rolled  themselves 
down  to  my  misei'ies.  .  .  ." 

Maurer  translates,  "  as  when  a  wall  is  broken,"  "  with 
a  shout  like  the  crash  of  falling  masonry.''^ 


TUE  BOOK  OF  JOB.  305 

"  29.  I  was  the  brother  of  dragons  and  companion  of 
ostriches. 

"  30.  My  sl-in  is  become  black  upon  me,  and  my  bones 
are  dried  up  with  the  heat.'''' 

We  are  reminded  of  Ovid's  statement  that  the  confla- 
gration of  Phaeton  caused  the  skin  of  the  Africans  to  turn 
black. 

In  chapter  xxxiv,  (King  James's  version,)  we  read  : 

"  14.  If  he "  (God)  "  set  his  heart  upon  man,  if  he 
gather  unto  himself  his  spii'it  and  his  breath  ; 

"  15.  All  flesh  shall  jjerish  together,  and  man  shall  turn 
again  unto  dust.'''' 

And  in  chapter  xxxvi,  (verses  15,  16,  Douay,)  we  see 
that  Job  was  shut  up  in  something  like  a  cavern  : 

"  15.  He  shall  deliver  the  poor  out  of  his  distress,  and 
shall  open  his  ear  in  afliiction. 

"  16.  Therefore  he  shall  set  thee  at  large  out  of  the  nar- 
roio  mouth,  and  which  hath  no  foundation  under  it ;  and 
the  rest  of  thy  table  shall  be  full  of  fatness." 

That  is  to  say,  in  the  day  when  he  delivers  the  poor 
out  of  their  misery,  he  will  bring  thee  forth  from  the 
place  where  thou  hast  been  "  hiding,"  (see  chap,  xiii,  20,) 
from  that  narrow-mouthed,  bottomless  cavern  ;  and  in- 
stead of  starving,  as  you  have  been,  your  table,  during  the 
rest  of  your  life,  "  shall  be  full  of  fatness." 

"27.  He"  (God)  "lifteth  up  the  drops  of  rain  and 
poureth  out  showers  like  floods. 

"  28.  Which  flow  from  the  clouds  which  cover  all  from 
above.'''' 

The  commentators  tell  us  that  this  expression,  "  which 
cover  all  from  above,"  means  literally,  "  the  bottom  of 
the  sea  is  laid  bare  "  ;  and  they  confess  their  inability  to 
understand  it.  But  is  it  not  the  same  story  told  by  Ovid 
of  the  bottom  of  the  Mediterranean  having  been  rendered 


30G  THE  LEGENDS. 

a  bed  of  dry  sand  by  Phaeton's  conflagration  ;  and  does 
it  not  remind  us  of  the  Central  American  legend  of  the 
starving  people  migrating  in  search  of  the  sun,  through 
rocky  places  where  the  sea  had  been  separated  to  allow 
them  to  pass  ? 

And  the  King  James  version  continues  : 

"  32.  With  clouds  he  cover eth  the  light ;  and  command- 
eth  it  not  to  shine  hy  the  cloud  that  cometh  heticixt. 

"  33.  The  noise  thereof  sheweth  concerning  it,  the  cat- 
tle also  concerning  the  vapor." 

This  last  line  shows  how  greatly  the  original  text  has 
been  garbled  ;  what  have  the  cattle  to  do  with  it  ?  Un- 
less, indeed,  here,  as  in  the  other  myths,  the  cows  signify 
the  clouds.  The  meaning  of  the  rest  is  jilain  :  God  draws 
up  the  water,  sends  it  down  as  rain,  which  covers  all 
things  ;  the  clouds  gather  before  the  sun  and  hide  its 
light ;  and  the  vapor  restores  the  cows,  the  clouds  ;  and 
all  this  is  accompanied  by  great  disturbances  and  noise. 

And  the  next  chapter  (xxxvii)  continues  the  description : 

"  2.  Hear  ye  attentively  the  terror  of  his"  (the  comet's) 
"voice,  and  the  sound  that  cometh  out  of  his  mouth, 

"  3.  He  beholdeth  under  all  the  heavens,"  (he  is  seen 
under  all  the  heavens  ?)  "  and  his  light  is  upon  the  ends 
of  the  earth. 

"4.  After  it  a  noise  shall  roar,  he  shall  thunder 
with  the  voice  of  his  majesty,  and  shall  not  be  found  out 
when  his  voice  shall  be  heard." 

The  King  James  version  says,  "  And  he  will  not  stay 
them  when  his  voice  is  heard." 

"  5.  God  shall  thunder  wonderfully  with  his  voice,  he 
that  doth  great  and  unsearchable  things." 

Here,  probably,  are  more  allusions  to  the  awful  noises 
made  by  the  comet  as  it  entered  our  atmosphere,  referred 
to  by  Hesiod,  the  Russian  legends,  etc. 


THE  BOOK  OF  JOB.  307 

"6.  He  commandeth  the  snoio  to  go  dotcn  t(po7i  the 
earth,  and  the  icinter  ram  and  the  shower  of  his  strength  " 
— ("the  great  rain  of  his  strength,''''  says  the  King  James 
version). 

"  7.  He  sealeth  up  the  hand  of  every  man." 

This  means,  says  one  commentatoi',  that  "he  confines 
men  vv^ithin  doors  "  by  these  great  rains.  Instead  of  houses 
we  infer  it  to  mean  "the  caves  of  the  earth,"  already 
spoken  of,  (chap,  xxx,  v.  6,)  and  this  is  rendered  more 
evident  by  the  next  verse  : 

"  8.  And  the  beast  shall  go  into  his  covert  and  shall 
abide  in  his  den. 

"  9.  Out  of  the  inner  parts  "  (meaning  the  south,  say 
the  commentators  and  the  King  James  version)  "  shall  a 
tem2)est  come,  and  cold  out  of  the  north. 

"  10.  When  God  bloweth,  there  cometh  frost,  and 
again  the  xoaters  are  poured  forth  abundantly.''^ 

The  King  James  version  continues  : 

"  11.  Also  by  watering  he  wearieth  the  thick  cloud." 

That  is  to  say,  the  cloud  is  gradually  dissipated  by 
dropping  its  moisture  in  snow  and  rain. 

"  \'l.  And  it  is  turned  round  about  by  his  counsels  : 
that  they  may  do  whatsoever  he  commandeth  them  upon 
the  face  of  the  world  in  the  earth. 

"  13.  He  causeth  it  to  come,  whether  for  correction,  or 
for  his  land,  or  for  mercy." 

There  can  be  no  mistaking  all  this.  It  refers  to  no 
ordinary  events.  The  statement  is  continuous.  God,  we 
are  told,  will  call  Job  out  from  his  narrow-mouthed  cave, 
and  once  more  give  him  plenty  of  food.  There  has  been 
a  great  tribulation.  The  sun  has  sucked  up  the  seas, 
they  have  fallen  in  great  floods  ;  the  thick  clouds  have 
covered  the  face  of  the  sun  ;  great  noises  prevail ;  there 
is  a  great  light,  and  after  it  a  roaring  noise ;  the  snow 


308  THE  LEGENDS. 

falls  on  the  earth,  with  winter  rains,  (cold  rains,)  and  great 
rains  ;  men  climb  down  ropes  into  deep  shafts  or  pits  ; 
they  are  sealed  up,  and  beasts  are  driven  to  their  dens 
and  stay  there  :  there  are  great  cold  and  frost,  and  more 
floods  ;  then  the  continual  rains  dissi^jate  the  clouds. 

"  19.  Teach  us  what  we  shall  say  unto  him  ;  for  we 
can  not  order  our  speech  by  reason  of  darkness. 

"  20.  Shall  it  be  told  him  that  I  speak  ?  If  a  man 
speak,  surely  he  shall  be  swallowed  up  ?  " 

And  then  God  talks  to  Job,  (chap,  xxxviii,)  and  tells 
him  "  to  gii'd  up  his  loins  like  a  man  and  answer  him." 
He  says  : 

"  8,  Who  shut  up  the  sea  with  doors,  when  it  broke 
forth  as  issuing  out  of  the  womb  ? 

"  9.  AYhen  I  made  a  clond  the  garment  thereof,  and 
wrapped  it  in  ndsts  as  in  swaddling-bands, 

"  10.  I  set  my  bounds  around  it,  and  made  it  bars  and 
doors."  .  .  . 

"22.  Hast  thou  entered  into  the  storehouses  of  the 
snoto,  or  hast  thou  beheld  the  treasures  of  the  hailf''  .  .  . 

"29.  Out  of  whose  womb  came  the  ice?  and  \\xq  frost 
from  heaven,  who  hath  gendered  it  ? 

"30.  The  waters  are  hardened  like  a  stone,  and  the 
surface  of  the  deep  is  frozen.'''' 

What  has  this  Arabian  poem  to  do  with  so  many  allu- 
sions to  clouds,  rain,  ice,  snow,  hail,  frost,  and  frozen 
oceans  ? 

"36.  Who  hath  put  wisdom  in  the  inward  part?  Or 
who  hath  given  understanding  to  the  heart  ?  " 

TJmbreit  says  that  this  word  "  heart "  means  literally 
"a  shining  phenomenon — a  meteor."  Who  hath  given 
understanding  to  the  comet  to  do  this  work  ? 

"  38.  When  was  the  dust  poured  on  the  earth,  and  the 
clods  hardened  together?  " 


THE  BOOK  OF  JOB.  309 

One  version  makes  this  read  : 

"  Poured  itself  into  a  mass  by  the  rain,  like  molten 
metal." 

And  another  translates  it — 

"Is  caked  into  a  mass  hij  heat.,  like  molten  metal, 

BEFORE  THE  EAIX  FALLS." 

This  is  precisely  in  accordance  with  my  theory  that 
the  "  till "  or  "  hard-pan,"  next  the  earth,  was  caked  and 
baked  by  the  heat  iato  its  present  pottery-like  and  im- 
penetrable condition,  long  before  the  work  of  cooling  and 
condensation  set  loose  the  floods  to  rearrange  and  form 
secondary  Drift  out  of  the  upper  portion  of  the  debris. 

But  again  I  ask,  when  in  the  natural  order  of  events 
was  dust  poured  on  the  earth  and  hardened  into  clods, 
like  molten  metal  ? 

And  in  this  book  of  Job  I  think  we  have  a  description 
of  the  veritable  comets  that  struck  the  earth,  in  the  Drift 
Age,  transmitted  even  from  the  generations  that  beheld 
them  blazing  in  the  sky,  in  the  words  of  those  who  looked 
upon  the  awful  sight. 

In  the  Xorse  legends  we  read  of  thi-ee  destructive  ob- 
jects which  appeai'ed  in  the  heavens  :  one  of  these  was 
shaped  like  a  serpent ;  it  was  called  "  the  Midgard-ser- 
pent "  ;  then  there  was  "  the  Fenris  wolf  "  ;  and,  lastly, 
"the  dog  Garm."  In  Hesiod  we  read,  also,  of  three 
monsters  :  first.  Echidna,  "  a  serpent  huge  and  terrible 
and  vast "  ;  second,  Chimsera,  a  lion-like  creature  ;  and, 
thirdly,  Typhoeus,  worst  of  all,  a  fierce,  fiery  dragon. 
And  in  Job,  in  like  manner,  we  have  three  mighty  ob- 
jects alluded  to  or  described  :  first  the  "  winding "  or 
"twisting"  serj^ent  with  which  God  has  "adorned  the 
heavens  ";  then  "behemoth,"  monsti'ous  enough  to  "  drink 
up  rivers,"  "  the  chief  of  the  ways  of  God  "  ;  and  lastly. 


310  THE  LEGENDS. 

and  most  terrible  of  all,  "  leviathan  " ;  the  name  meaning, 
"  the  twisting  animal,  gathering  itself  into  folds." 

God,  speaking  to  Job,  and  reminding  him  of  the  weak- 
ness and  littleness  of  man,  says  (chap,  xl,  v.  20)  : 

"  Canst  thou  draw  out  the  leviathan  with  a  hook,  or 
canst  thou  tie  his  tongue  with  a  cord?" 

The  commentators  differ  widely  as  to  the  meaning  of 
this  Avord  "  leviathan."  Some,  as  I  have  shown,  think  it 
means  the  same  thing  as  the  crooked  or  "  winding  "  ser- 
pent iyulg.)  spoken  of  in  chapter  xxvi,  v.  13,  where,  speak- 
ing of  God,  it  is  said  : 

"  His  spirit  hath  adorned  the  heavens,  and  his  artful 
hand  brought  forth  the  winding  serpent." 

Or,  as  the  King  James  version  has  it : 

"  By  his  spirit  he  hath  garnished  the  heavens  ;  his 
hand  hath  formed  the  crooked  serpent." 

By  this  serpent  some  of  the  commentators  understand 
"  a  constellation,  the  devil,  the  leviathan."  In  the  Sep- 
tuagint  he  is  called  "  the  apostate  dragon." 

The  Lord  sarcastically  asks  Job  : 

"  21.  Canst  thou  put  a  ring  in  his  nose,  or  bore  through 
his  jaw  with  a  buckle  ? 

"23.  Will  he  make  many  supplications  to  thee,  or 
speak  soft  words  to  thee  ? 

"23.  Will  he  make  a  covenant  with  thee,  and  wilt 
thou  take  him  to  be  a  servant  for  ever  ? 

"  24.  Shalt  thou  play  with  him  as  with  a  bird,  or  tie 
him  up  for  thy  handmaids  ? 

"  25.  Shall  friends  "  (Septiiagint,  "  the  nations  ")  "  cut 
him  in  pieces,  shall  merchants"  (Septuagint,  "the  genera- 
tion of  the  Phoenicians  ")  "  divide  him  ?  "  .  .  .  (chap,  xli, 
V.  1.     Douay  version.) 

"  I  will  not  stir  him  up,  like  one  that  is  cruel  ;  for 
who  can  resist  my "  (his  ?)  "  countenance,"  or,  "  who 
shall  stand  against  me  "  (him  ?)  "  and  live  ?  "  .  .  . 


THE  BOOK  OF  JOB.  311 

"4.  "Who  can  discover  the  face  of  his  garment?  or 
who  can  go  into  the  midst  of  his  moutli  ? 

"  5.  Who  can  open  the  doors  of  his  face  ?  his  teeth  are 
terrible  round  about. 

"  6.  His  body  is  like  molten  shields,  shut  close  up,  the 
scales  pressing  upon  one  another. 

"7.  One  is  joined  to  another,  and  not  so  much  as  any 
air  can  come  between  them. 

"8.  They  stick  one  to  another,  and  they  hold  one 
another  fast,  and  shall  not  be  separated. 

"  9.  His  sneezing  is  like  the  shininff  of  fire,  and  his 
eyes  like  the  eyelids  of  the  morning."  (Syriac,  "  His  look 
is  brilliant."  Arabic,  "  The  apples  of  his  eyes  are  fiery, 
and  his  eyes  are  like  the  brightness  of  the  morning.") 

"  10.  Out  of  his  mouth  go  forth  lamps,  like  torches  of 
lighted  fir  e.^'' 

Compare  these  "  sneezings  "  or  "  neesings "  of  the 
King  James  version,  and  these  "  lamps  like  torches  of 
lighted  fire,"  with  the  appearance  of  Donati's  great  comet 
in  1858  : 

"  On  the  16th  of  September  two  diverging  streams  of 
light  shot  out  from  the  nucleus  across  tlie  coma,  and,  hav- 
ing separated  to  about  the  extent  of  its  diameter,  they 
turned  back  abruptly  and  streamed  out  in  the  tail.  Lu- 
minous substance  could  be  distinctly  seen  rushing  out 
from  the  nucleus,  and  then  flowing  back  into  the  tail. 
M.  Rosa  described  the  streams  of  light  as  resembling  long 
hair  brushed  upxcard  from  the  forehead,  and  then  allowed 
to  fall  back  on  each  side  of  the  head."  * 

"  11.  Out  of  his  nostrils  goeth  forth  smoke,  like  that 
of  a  pot  heated  and  boiling."  (King  James's  version  has 
it,  "  as  out  of  a  seething  pot  or  caldron.") 

"12.  His  breath  kindleth  coals,  and  aflame  cometh 
forth  out  of  his  mouth. 

"  13.  In  his  neck  sti'ength  shall  dwell,  and  want  goeth 
before  his  face."  (Septuagint,  '■''Destruction  runs  before 
him:') 

*  "Edinburgh  Review,"  October,  1874,  p.  208. 


312  THE  LEGENDS. 

"  14.  The  members  of  his  flesh  cleave  one  to  another  ; 
he  shall  send  lightnings  against  him,  and  they  shall  not 
he  carried  to  another  place."  (Sym.,  "  His  flesh  being 
cast  for  him  as  in  a  foundry,"  (molten,)  "  is  immovable.") 

"  15.  His  heart  shall  be  as  hard  as  a  stone,  and  as  firm 
as  a  smith's  anvil."  (Septuagint,  "  He  hath  stood  immov- 
able as  an  anvil.") 

"  16.  When  he  shall  raise  him  up,  the  angels  shall  fear, 
and  being  affrighted  shall  purify  themselves." 

Could  such  language  properly  be  applied,  even  by  the 
wildest  stretch  of  poetic  fancy,  to  a  whale  or  a  crocodile, 
or  any  other  monster  of  the  deep  ?  What  earthly  creat- 
ure could  terrify  the  angels  in  heaven  ?  What  earthly 
creature  has  ever  breathed  fire  ? 

"  17.  When  a  sword  shall  lay  at  him,  it  shall  not  be 
able  to  hold,  nor  a  spear,  nor  a  breast-plate. 

"  18.  For  he  shall  esteem  ii'on  as  straw,  and  brass  as 
rotten  wood. 

"  19.  The  archer  shall  not  put  him  to  flight,  the  stones 
of  the  sling  are  to  him  like  stubble. 

"  20.  As  stubble  will  he  esteem  the  hammer,  and  he 
will  laugh  him  to  scorn  who  shaketh  the  spear." 

We  are  reminded  of  the  great  gods  of  Asgard,  who 
stood  forth  and  fought  the  monster  with  sword  and  spear 
and  hammer,  and  who  fell  dead  before  him  ;  and  of  the 
American  legends,  where  the  demi-gods  in  vain  hurled 
their  darts  and  arrows  at  him,  and  fell  pierced  by  the  re- 
bounding weapons. 

"  21.  The  beams  of  the  sun  shall  he  under  him,''''  (in  the 
King  James  version  it  is,  "  sharp  stones  are  under  him  " 
— the  gravel,  the  falling  debris^  "and  he  shall  strew  gold 
under  him  like  mire.''''  (The  King  James  version  says,  "Ae 
spreadeth  sharp-pointed  tilings  iipon  the  mire.''^) 

To  what  whale  or  crocodile  can  these  words  be  ap- 
plied ?     When  did  they  ever  shed  gold  or  stones  ?     And 


THE  BOOK  OF  JOB.  313 

in  this,  again,  \ve  have  more  references  to  gold  falling 
from  heaven  : 

"2:2.  He  shall  make  the  deep  sea  to  boil  like  a  pot, 
and  shall  make  it  as  when  ointments  boil."  (The  Septua- 
gint  says,  "  He  deems  the  sea  as  a  vase  of  ointment,  and 
the  Tartarus  of  the  abyss  like  a  prisoner.") 

"23.  x\.  path  shall  shine  after  him/  he  shall  esteem 
the  deep  as  growing  old."  (The  King  James  version 
says,  "  One  would  think  the  deep  to  be  hoary.") 

"  24.  There  is  no  power  upon  earth  that  can  be  comjxired 
with  him,  who  was  made  to  fear  no  one. 

"  25.  He  beholdeth  every  high  thing  /  he  is  king  over 
all  the  children  of  pride."  (Chaldaic,  "  of  all  the  sous  of 
the  mountains.") 

Now,  when  we  take  this  description,  with  all  that  has 
preceded  it,  it  seems  to  me  beyond  question  that  this  was 
one  of  the  crooked  serpents  with  which  God  had  adorned 
the  heavens  :  this  was  the  monster  with  blazing  head,  cast- 
ing out  jets  of  light,  breathing  volumes  of  smoke,  molten, 
shining,  brilliant,  irresistible,  against  whom  men  hurled 
their  weapons  in  vain  ;  for  destruction  went  before  him  : 
he  cast  down  stones  and  pointed  things  upon  the  mire, 
the  clay  ;  the  sea  boils  with  his  excessive  heat ;  he  threat- 
ens heaven  itself  ;  the  angels  tremble,  and  he  beholds  all 
high  places.  This  is  he  whose  rain  of  fire  killed  Job's 
sheep  and  shepherds  ;  whose  chaotic  winds  killed  Job's 
children  ;  whose  wrath  fell  upon  and  consumed  the  rich 
men  at  their  tables  ;  who  made  the  habitations  of  kinsrs 
"  desolate  places  "  ;  who  spared  only  in  part  "  the  island 
of  the  innocent,"  where  the  remnant  of  humanity,  descend- 
ing by  ropes,  hid  themselves  in  deep,  narrow-mouthed 
caves  in  the  mountains.  This  is  he  who  dried  up  the 
rivers  and  absorbed  or  evaporated  a  great  part  of  the 
water  of  the  ocean,  to  subsequently  cast  it  down  in  great 
floods  of  snow  and  rain,  to  cover  the  north  with  ice  ; 
15 


314  THE  LEGENDS. 

while  the  darkened  world  rolled  on  for  a  lonor  niarht  of 
blackness  underneath  its  dense  canopy  of  clouds. 

If  this  be  not  the  true  interpretation  of  Job,  who,  let 
me  ask,  can  explain  all  these  allusions  to  harmonize  with 
the  established  order  of  nature  ?  And  if  this  interpreta- 
tion be  the  true  one,  then  have  we  indeed  penetrated  back 
through  all  the  ages,  through  mighty  lapses  of  time,  until, 
on  the  plain  of  some  most  ancient  civilized  land,  we  lis- 
ten, perchance,  at  some  temple-door,  to  this  grand  justifi- 
cation of  the  ways  of  God  to  man  ;  this  religious  drama, 
this  poetical  sermon,  wrought  out  of  the  traditions  of  the 
people  and  priests,  touching  the  greatest  calamity  which 
ever  tried  the  hearts  and  tested  the  faith  of  man. 

And  if  this  interpretation  be  true,  with  how  much  rev- 
erential care  should  we  consider  these  ancient  records  cm- 
braced  in  the  Bible  ! 

The  scientist  picks  up  a  fragment  of  stone — tlie  fool 
would  fling  it  away  with  a  laugh, — but  the  philosopher 
sees  in  it  the  genesis  of  a  woi'ld  ;  from  it  he  can  piece  out 
the  detailed  history  of  ages  ;  he  finds  in  it,  perchance,  a 
fossil  of  the  oldest  organism,  the  fii'st  ti'aces  of  that  awful 
leap  from  matter  to  spirit,  from  dead  earth  to  endless  life  ; 
that  marvel  of  marvels,  that  miracle  of  all  miracles,  by 
which  dust  and  water  and  air  live,  breathe,  think,  reason, 
and  cast  their  thoughts  abroad  through  time  and  space 
and  eternity. 

And  so,  stumbling  through  these  texts,  falling  over 
mistranslations  and  misconceptions,  pushing  aside  the  ac- 
cumulated dust  of  centuried  errors,  we  lay  our  hands  upon 
a  fossil  that  lived  and  breathed  when  time  was  new  :  we 
are  carried  back  to  ages  not  only  before  the  flood,  but  to 
ages  that  were  old  when  the  flood  came  upon  the  earth. 

Here  Job  lives  once  more  :  the  fossil  breathes  and  pal- 
pitates ; — hidden  from  the  fire  of  heaven,  deep  in  his  cav- 


THE  BOOK  OF  JOB.  315 

ern  ;  covered  with  burns  and  bruises  from  the  falling 
debris  of  the  comet,  surrounded  by  his  trembling  fellow- 
refugees,  while  chaos  rules  without  and  hope  has  fled  the 
earth,  we  hear  Job,  bold,  defiant,  unshrinking,  pouring 
forth  the  protest  of  the  human  heart  against  the  cruelty 
of  nature  ;  appealing  from  God's  awful  deed  to  the  sense 
of  God's  eternal  justice. 

^Ve  go  out  and  look  at  the  gravel-heap  —  worn, 
rounded,  ancient,  but  silent, — the  stones  lie  before  us. 
They  have  no  voice.  TVe  turn  to  this  volume,  and  here 
is  their  voice,  here  is  their  story  ;  here  we  have  the  very 
thoughts  men  thought — men  like  ourselves,  but  sorely 
tried — when  that  gravel  was  falling  upon  a  desolated 
world. 

And  all  this  buried,  unrecognized,  in  the  sacred  book 
of  a  race  and  a  religion. 


316  THE  LEGEXDS. 


CHAPTER  XIII. 

GENESIS  BEAD  BY  THE  LIGHT  OF  THE  COMET. 

AxD  now,  gathering  into  our  hands  all  the  light  af- 
foi'ded  by  the  foregoing  facts  and  legends,  let  us  address 
ourselves  to  this  question  :  How  far  can  the  opening  chap- 
ters of  the  book  of  Genesis  be  interpreted  to  conform  to 
the  theory  of  the  contact  of  a  comet  with  the  earth  in  the 
Drift  Age  ? 

It  may  appear  to  some  of  my  readers  irreverent  to 
place  any  new  meaning  on  any  part  of  the  sacred  volume, 
and  especially  to  attempt  to  transpose  the  position  of  any 
of  its  parts.     For  this  feeling  I  have  the  highest  respect. 

I  do  not  think  it  is  necessary,  for  the  triumph  of  truth, 
that  it  should  lacerate  the  feelings  even  of  the  humblest. 
It  should  come,  like  Quetzalcoatl,  advancing  with  shining, 
smiling  face,  its  hands  full  of  fruits  and  flowers,  bringing 
only  blessings  and  kindliness  to  the  multitude  ;  and  should 
that  multitude,  for  a  time,  drive  the  prophet  away,  be- 
yond the  seas,  with  curses,  be  assured  they  will  eventually 
return  to  set  up  his  altars. 

He  who  follows  the  gigantic  Mississippi  upward  from 
the  Gulf  of  Mexico  to  its  head- waters  on  the  high  plateau 
of  Minnesota,  will  not  scorn  even  the  tiniest  rivulet  among 
the  grass  which  helps  to  create  its  first  fountain.  So  he 
who  considers  the  vastness  for  good  of  this  great  force, 
Christianity,  which  pervades  the  world  down  the  long 
course  of  so  many  ages,  aiding,  relieving,  encouraging, 
cheering,  purifying,  sanctifying  humanity,  can  not  afford 


GENESIS  READ  BY  THE  LIGHT  OF  THE  COMET.     317 

to  ridicule  even  these  the  petty  fountiiins,  the  head-waters, 
the  first  springs  from  which  it  starts  on  its  world-cover- 
insf  and  aoe-traversinsc  course. 

If  we  will  but  remember  the  endless  array  of  asylums, 
hospitals,  and  orphanages  ;  the  houses  for  the  poor,  the 
sick,  the  young,  the  old,  the  unfortunate,  the  helpless,  and 
the  sinful,  with  which  Christianity  has  literally  sprinkled 
the  world  ;  when  we  remember  the  uncountable  millions 
whom  its  ministrations  have  restrained  from  bestiality, 
and  have  directed  to  purer  lives  and  holier  deaths,  he  in- 
deed is  not  to  be  envied  who  can  find  it  in  his  heart,  with 
malice-aforethought,  to  mock  or  ridicule  it. 

At  the  same  time,  few,  I  think,  even  of  the  orthodox, 
while  bating  no  jot  of  their  respect  for  the  sacred  volume, 
or  their  faith  in  the  great  current  of  inspired  purjDOse  and 
meaning  which  streams  through  it,  from  cover  to  cover, 
bold  to-day  that  every  line  and  word  is  literally  accurate 
beyond  a  shadow  of  question.  The  direct  contradictions 
which  occur  in  the  text  itself  show  that  the  errors  of  man 
have  crept  into  the  compilation  or  composition  of  the 
volume. 

The  assaults  of  the  skeptical  have  been  largely  directed 
against  the  opening  chapters  of  Genesis  : 

"  What  !  "  it  has  been  said,  "  you  pretend  in  the  first 
chapter  that  the  animated  creation  was  made  in  six  days  ; 
and  then  in  the  second  chapter  (verses  4  and  5)  you  say 
that  the  heavens  and  the  earth  and  all  the  vegetation 
were  made  in  one  day.  Again  :  you  tell  us  that  there  was 
light  shining  on  the  earth  on  the  first  day  ;  and  that  there 
was  night  too  ;  for  '  God  divided  the  light  from  the  dark- 
ness '  ;  and  there  was  morning  and  evening  on  the  first, 
second,  and  third  days,  while  the  sun,  moon,  and  stars,  we 
are  told,  were  not  created  until  the  fourth  day  ;  and  grass 
and  fruit-trees  were  made  before  the  sun." 


318  THE  LEGENDS. 

"  How,"  it  is  asked,  "  could  there  be  night  and  day 
and  vegetation  without  a  sun  ?  " 

And  to  this  assault  religion  has  had  no  answer. 

Kow,  I  can  not  but  regard  these  ojjening  chapters  as  a 
Mosaic  work  of  ancient  legends,  dovetailed  together  in 
such  wise  that  the  true  chronological  arrangement  has 
been  departed  from  and  lost. 

It  is  conceded  that  in  some  of  the  verses  of  these  chap- 
ters God  is  spoken  of  as  Elohim,  while  in  the  remaining 
verses  he  is  called  Jehovah  Elohim.  This  is  A^ery  much 
as  if  a  book  were  discovered  to-day  in  part  of  which  God 
was  referred  to  as  Jove,  and  in  the  rest  as  Jehovah-Jove. 
The  conclusion  would  be  very  strong  that  the  first  part 
was  written  by  one  who  knew  the  Deity  only  as  Jove, 
while  the  other  portion  was  written  by  one  who  had  come 
under  Hebraic  influences.  And  this  state  of  facts  in  Gen- 
esis indicates  that  it  was  not  the  work  of  one  inspired 
mind,  faultless  and  free  from  error  ;  but  the  work  of  two 
minds,  relating  facts,  it  is  true,  but  jumbling  them  to- 
gether in  an  incongruous  order. 

I  propose,  therefore,  with  all  reverence,  to  attempt  a 
re-arrangement  of  the  verses  of  the  opening  chapters  of 
the  book  of  Genesis,  which  will,  I  hope,  place  it  in  such 
shape  that  it  will  be  beyond  future  attack  from  the  re- 
sults of  scientific  research  ;  by  restoring  the  fragments 
to  the  position  they  really  occupied  before  their  last  com- 
pilation. Whether  or  not  I  present  a  reasonably  prob- 
able case,  it  is  for  the  reader  to  judge. 

If  we  were  to  find,  under  the  debris  of  Pompeii,  a 
grand  tessellated  pavement,  representing  one  of  the  scenes 
of  the  "Iliad,"  but  shattered  by  an  earthquake,  its  frag- 
ments dislocated  and  piled  one  upon  the  top  of  another,  it 
would  be  our  duty  and  our  pleasure  to  seek,  by  following 
the  clew  of  the  picture,  to  re-arrange  the  fragments  so  as 


GENESIS  READ  BY  THE  LIGHT  OF  THE  COMET.     319 

to  do  justice  to  the  great  design  of  its  author  ;  and  to 
silence,  at  the  same  time,  the  cavils  of  those  who  could 
see  in  its  shocked  and  broken  form  nothing  but  a  subject 
for  mirth  and  ridicule. 

In  the  same  way,  following  the  clew  afforded  by  the 
legends  of  mankind  and  the  revelations  of  science,  I  shall 
suggest  a  reconstruction  of  this  venerable  and  most  an- 
cient work.  If  the  reader  does  not  accept  my  conclu- 
sions, he  will,  at  least,  I  trust,  appreciate  the  motives  with 
which  I  make  the  attempt. 

I  commence  with  that  which  is,  and  should  be,  the 
first  verse  of  the  first  chapter,  the  sublime  sentence  : 

"  In  the  beginning  God  created  the  heavens  and  the 
earth." 

Let  us  pause  here  :  "  God  created  the  heavens  and 
the  earth  in  the  heginning''''  ; — that  is,  before  any  other 
of  the  events  narrated  in  the  chapter.  Why  should 
we  refuse  to  accept  this  statement  ?  In  the  beginning, 
says  the  Bible,  at  the  very  first,  God  created  the  heavens 
and  the  earth.  He  did  not  make  them  in  six  days,  he 
made  them  in  the  beginning ;  the  words  "  six  days " 
refer,  as  we  shall  see,  to  something  that  occurred  long 
afterward.  He  did  not  attempt  to  create  them,  he  created 
them  ;  he  did  not  partially  create  them,  he  created  them 
altogether.  The  work  was  finished  ;  the  earth  was  made, 
the  heavens  were  made,  the  clouds,  the  atmosphere,  the 
rocks,  the  waters  ;  and  the  sun,  moon,  and  stars  ;  all  were 
completed. 

What  next  ?  Is  there  anything  else  in  this  dislocated 
text  that  refers  to  this  first  creation  ?  Yes  ;  we  go  for- 
ward to  the  next  chapter  ;  here  we  have  it  : 

Chap,  ii,  V.  1.  "  TJius  the  heavens  mid  the  earth  were 
finished,  and  all  the  host  of  thorn." 


320  THE  LEGENDS. 

And  then  follows  : 

Chap,  ii,  V.  4.  "  These  are  the  generations  of  the 
heavens  and  of  the  earth,  tcJien  they  were  created,  ix  the 
DAY  that  the  Lord  God  made  the  earth  and  the  heavens. 

Chap,  ii,  V.  5.  "And  every  plant  of  the  field  before 
it  was  in  the  earth,  and  every  herb  of  the  field  before  it 
grew  ;  for  the  Lord  God  had  not  caused  it  to  rain  upon 
the  earth,  and  there  was  not  a  man  to  till  the  ground." 

Here  we  have  a  consecutive  statement — God  made  the 
heavens  and  the  earth  in  the  beginning,  and  thus  they 
were  Jinished,  and  all  the  host  of  them.  They  were  not 
made  in  six  days,  but  "  in  the  day,"  to  wit,  in  that  period 
of  remote  time  called  "  The  Beginning."  And  God  made 
also  all  the  herbs  of  the  field,  all  vegetation.  And  he 
made  every  plant  of  the  field  before  it  was  cultivated  in 
that  particular  part  of  the  world  called  "  The  Earth,"  for, 
as  we  have  seen,  Ovid  draws  a  distinction  between  "  The 
Earth  "  and  the  rest  of  the  globe  ;  and  Job  draws  one 
between  '•  the  island  of  the  innocent "  and  the  other  coun- 
tries of  the  world. 

And  here  I  would  call  the  reader's  attention  partic- 
ularly to  this  remarkable  statement: 

Chap,  ii,  verse  5.  "  For  the  Lord  God  had  not  caused 
it  to  rain  upon  the  earth,  and  there  was  not  a  man  to  till 
the  ground. 

Verse  G.  "  But  there  went  up  a  mist  from  the  earth 
and  watered  the  whole  face  of  the  ground." 

This  is  extraordinary  :  there  teas  no  rain. 

A  mere  inventor  of  legends  certainly  had  never  dared 
make  a  statement  so  utterly  in  conflict  with  the  estab- 
lished order  of  things  ;  there  was  no  necessity  for  him  to 
do  so  ;  he  would  fear  that  it  would  throw  discredit  on  all 
the  rest  of  his  narrative  ;  as  if  he  should  say,  "  at  that 
time  the  grass  was  not  green,"  or,  "  the  sky  was  not  blue." 


GENESIS  READ  BY  THE  LIGHT  OF  THE  COMET.     321 

A  world  'without  raiu!  Could  it  be  possible?  Did 
the  writer  of  Genesis  invent  an  absurdity,  or  did  he  re- 
cord an  undoubted  tradition  ?     Let  us  see  : 

Rain  is  the  product  of  two  things — heat  which  evapo- 
rates the  waters  of  the  oceans,  lakes,  and  rivers  ;  and  cold 
which  condenses  them  again  into  rain  or  snow.  Both 
heat  and  cold  are  necessar}^.  In  the  tropics  the  water  is 
sucked  up  by  the  heat  of  the  sun  ;  it  rises  to  a  cooler 
stratum,  and  forms  clouds  ;  these  clouds  encounter  the 
colder  air  flowing  in  from  the  north  and  south,  condensa- 
tion follows,  accompanied  probably  by  some  peculiar 
electrical  action,  and  then  the  rain  falls. 

But  when  the  lemon  and  the  banana  grew  in  Spitz- 
bergen,  as  geology  assures  us  they  did  in  pre-glacial 
days,  where  was  the  cold  to  come  from  ?  The  very  poles 
must  then  have  possessed  a  warm  climate.  There  were, 
therefore,  at  that  time,  no  movements  of  cold  air  from  the 
poles  to  the  equator  ;  when  the  heat  drew  up  the  moist- 
ure it  rose  into  a  vast  body  of  heated  atmosphere,  sur- 
rounding the  v^^hole  globe  to  a  great  height  ;  it  would 
have  to  pass  through  this  cloak  of  warm  air,  and  high  up 
above  the  earth,  even  to  the  limits  of  the  earth-warmth, 
before  it  reached  an  atmosphere  sufficiently  cool  to  con- 
dense it,  and  from  that  great  height  it  would  fall  as  a 
fine  mist. 

We  find  an  illustration  of  this  state  of  things  on  the 
coast  of  Peru,  fi'om  the  river  Loa  to  Cape  Blanco,*  where 
no  rain  ever  falls,  in  consequence  of  the  heated  air  which 
ascends  from  the  vast  sand  wastes,  and  keejjs  the  moisture 
of  the  air  above  the  point  of  condensation. 

Or  it  would  have  to  depend  for  its  condensation  on  the 
difference  of  temperature  between  night  and  day,  settling 

*  "  American  Cyclopsedia,"  vol.  xiii,  p.  337. 


322  THE  LEGEXDS. 

like  a  dew  at  night  upon  the  earth,  and  so  maintaining 
vegetation. 

What  a  striking  testimony  is  all  this  to  the  fact  that 
these  traditions  of  Genesis  reach  back  to  the  very  infancy 
of  human  history — to  the  age  before  the  Drift ! 

After  the  creation  of  the  herbs  and  plants,  Avhat  came 
next  ?     We  go  back  to  the  first  chapter  : 

Verse  21.  "And  God  created  great  whales,  and  every 
living  creature  that  moveth,  which  the  waters  brought 
forth  abundantly,  after  their  kind,  and  every  winged  fowl 
after  his  kind  :  and  God  saw  that  it  was  good." 

Verse  22.  "  And  God  blessed  them,  saying,  Be  fruit- 
ful, and  multiply,  and  fill  the  waters  in  the  seas,  and  let 
the  fowl  multiply  in  the  earth." 

Verse  25.  "  And  God  made  the  beast  of  the  earth 
after  his  kind,  and  cattle  after  their  kind,  and  every- 
thing that  creepeth  upon  the  earth  after  his  kind  :  and 
God  saw  that  it  was  good." 

Verse  26.  "And  God  said.  Let  us  make  man  in  our 
image,  after  our  likeness  :  and  let  them  have  dominion 
over  the  fish  of  the  sea,  and  over  the  fowl  of  the  air,  and 
over  the  cattle,  and  over  all  the  earth,  and  over  every 
creeping  thing  that  creepeth  upon  the  eai'th." 

We  come  back  to  the  second  chapter  : 

Verse  7.  "  And  the  Lord  God  formed  man  of  the  dust 
of  the  ground,  and  breathed  into  his  nostrils  the  breath 
of  life  ;  and  man  became  a  living  soul." 

We  return  to  the  first  chapter  : 

Verse  27.  "  So  God  created  man  in  his  own  image,  in 
the  image  of  God  created  he  him  ;  male  and  female  cre- 
ated he  them." 

We  come  back  to  the  second  chapter  : 

Verse  8.  "  And  the  Lord  God  planted  a  garden  east- 
ward in  Eden  ;  and  there  he  put  the  man  he  had  formed." 

Verse  9.  "  And  out  of  the  ground  made  the  Lord  God 
to  grow  every  tree  that  is  pleasant  to  the  sight  and  good 


GEXESIS  HEAD  BY  THE  LIGHT  OF  THE  COMET.     323 

for  food  ;  the  tree  of  life  also  in  the  midst  of  the  garden, 
and  the  tree  of  knowledge  of  good  and  evil." 

Verse  10.  ''And  a  I'iver  went  out  of  Eden  to  water 
the  garden,"  etc. 

Here  follows  a  descri^jtion  of  the  garden  ;  it  is  a  jnct- 
ure  of  a  glorious  world,  of  that  age  when  the  climate  of 
the  Bahamas  extended  to  Spitzbergen. 

Verse  15.  "And  the  Lord  God  took  the  man,  and  jDut 
him  into  the  garden  of  Eden  to  dress  it  and  to  keep  it." 

Here  follows  the  injunction  that  "  the  man  whom  God 
had  formed,"  (for  he  is  not  yet  called  Adam — the  Adanii 
— the  people  of  Ad,)  should  not  eat  of  the  fruit  of  the 
ti-ee  of  the  knowledge  of  good  and  evil. 

And  then  we  have,  (probably  a  later  interpolation,)  an 
account  of  Adam,  so  called  for  the  first  time,  naming  the 
animals,  and  of  the  creation  of  Eve  from  a  rib  of  Adam. 

And  here  is  another  evidence  of  the  dislocation  of  the 
text,  for  we  have  already  been  informed  (chap,  i,  v.  27) 
that  God  had  made  man,  "  male  and  female  "  /  and  here 
we  have  him  makino^  woman  over  again  from  man's  rib. 

Verse  25.  "  And  they  were  both  naked,  the  man  and 
his  wife,  and  were  not  ashamed." 

It  "was  an  age  of  primitive  simplicity,  the  primeval 
world  ;  free  from  storms  or  ice  or  snow  ;  an  Edenic  age  ; 
the  Tertiary  Age  before  the  Drift. 

Then  follows  the  appearance  of  the  serpent.  Although 
represented  in  the  text  in  a  very  humble  capacity,  he  is 
undoubtedly  the  same  great  creature  which,  in  all  the 
legends,  brought  ruin  on  the  world — the  dragon,  the 
apostate,  the  demon,  the  winding  or  crooked  serpent  of 
Job,  the  leviathan,  Satan,  the  devil.  And  as  such  he  is 
regarded  by  the  theologians. 

He  obtains  moral  possession  of  the  woman,  just  as  we 


324  THE  LEGEXDS. 

have  seen,  in  the  Hindoo  legends,  the  demon  Ravana 
carrying  o£f  Sita,  the  representative  of  an  agricultural 
civilization  ;  just  as  we  have  seen  Ataguju,  the  Peruvian 
god,  seducing  the  sister  of  certain  rayless  ones,  or  Dark- 
lings.     And  the  woman  ate  of  the  fruit  of  the  tree. 

This  is  the  same  legend  which  we  see  appearing  in  so 
many  places  and  in  so  many  forms.  The  apple  of  Paradise 
was  one  of  the  apples  of  the  Greek  legends,  intrusted  to  the 
Hesperides,  but  which  they  could  not  resist  the  temptation 
to  pluck  and  eat.     The  serpent  Ladon  watched  the  tree. 

It  was  one  of  the  apples  of  Idun,  in  the  Norse  legends, 
the  wife  of  Brage,  the  god  of  jjoetry  and  eloquence.  She 
keeps  them  in  a  box,  and  when  the  gods  feel  the  approach 
of  old  age  they  have  only  to  taste  them  and  become  young 
again.  Loke,  the  evil-one,  the  Norse  devil,  tempted  Idun 
to  come  into  a  forest  with  her  apples,  to  compare  them 
with  some  others,  whereupon  a  giant  called  Thjasse,  in 
the  appearance  of  an  enormous  eagle,  flew  down,  seized 
Idun  and  her  apples,  and  carried  them  away,  like  Havana, 
into  the  aii*.  The  gods  compelled  Loke  to  bring  her  back, 
for  they  were  the  apples  of  the  tree  of  life  to  them  ;  with- 
out them  they  were  perishing.  Loke  stole  Idun  from 
Thjasse,  changed  her  into  a  nut,  and  fled  with  her,  jnir- 
sued  by  Thjasse.  The  gods  kindled  a  great  fire,  the  eagle 
plumage  of  Thjasse  caught  the  flames,  he  fell  to  the  ecrtJi, 
and  was  slain  hy  the  gods.^ 

But  the  serj^ent  in  Genesis  ruins  Eden,  just  as  he  did  in 
all  the  legends  ;  just  as  the  comet  ruined  the  Tertiary  Age. 
The  fair  vrorld  disappears  ;  cold  and  ice  and  snow  come. 

Adam  and  Eve,  we  have  seen,  were  at  first  naked,  and 
subsequently  clothe  themselves,  for  modesty,  with  flg- 
Icaves,  (chap,  iii,  v.  7  ;)  but  there  comes  a  time,  as  in  the 

*  "  Norse  M}-tlioloT7,"  pp.  27o,  27G. 


GEXESIS  BEAD  BY  THE  LIGHT  OF  THE  CO  .VET.     325 

North  American  legends,  when  the  great  cold  compels 
them  to  cover  their  shivering  bodies  with  the  skins  of  the 
wild  beasts  they  have  slain. 

A  recent  writer,  commenting  on  the  Glacial  Age,  says  : 

"  Colder  and  colder  grew  the  winds.  The  body  could 
not  be  kept  warm.  Clothing  must  be  had,  and  this  must 
be  furnished  by  the  wild  beasts.  Their  hides  must  assist 
in  protecting  the  life  of  men.  .  .  .  The  skins  were  re- 
moved and  transferred  to  the  bodies  of  men."  * 

Hence  we  read  in  chapter  iii,  verse  21  : 

"  Unto  Adam  also,  and  to  his  wife,  did  the  Lord  God 
make  coats  of  skins  and  clothed  them.'''' 

This  would  not  have  been  necessary  during  the  warm 
climate  of  the  Tertiary  Age.  And  as  this  took  place,  ac- 
cording to  Genesis,  before  Adam  was  driven  out  of  Para- 
dise, and  while  he  still  remained  in  the  garden,  it  is  evi- 
dent that  some  great  change  of  climate  had  fallen  upon 
Eden.  The  Glacial  Age  had  arrived ;  the  Drift  had 
come.  It  was  a  rude,  barbarous,  cold  age.  Man  must 
cover  himself  with  skins  ;  he  must,  by  the  sweat  of  phys- 
ical labor,  wring  a  living  out  of  the  ground  which  God 
had  "cursed"  with  the  Drift.  Instead  of  the  fair  and 
fertile  world  of  the  Tertiary  Age,  producing  all  fruits 
abundantly,  the  soil  is  covered  with  stones  and  clay,  as 
in  Job's  narrative,  and  it  brings  forth,  as  we  are  told  in 
Genesis,f  only  "  thorns  and  thistles "  ;  and  Adam,  the 
human  race,  must  satisfy  its  starving  stomach  upon  grass, 
'•'  and  thou  shalt  eat  the  herb  of  the  field"  ;  just  as  in  Job 
we  are  told  : 

Chap.  XXX,  verse  3.  "  For  want  and  famine  they  were 
solitary  ;  fleeing  into  the  wilderness  in  former  time,  deso- 
late and  solitary." 

*  Maclean's  "Antiquity  of  ilan,"  p.  6d.  \  Chap,  iii,  verse  18. 


326  THE  LEGEXDS. 

Verse  4.  "  Who  cut  up  mallows  by  the  bushes  and 
juniper- roots  for  their  food." 

Verse  7.  "  Among  the  bushes  they  brayed,  under  the 
nettles  were  they  gathered  together." 

And  God  ^^ drove  out  the  man''''  from  the  fair  Edenic 
world  into  the  post-glacial  desolation  ;  and  Paradise  was 
lost,  and — 

"  At  the  east  of  the  garden  of  Eden  he  placed  cheru- 
bims  and  a  flaming  sicord,  which  turned  every  way,  to 
keep  the  way  to  the  tree  of  life." 

This  is  the  sword  of  the  comet.  The  Norse  legends 
say: 

"  Yet,  before  all  things,  there  existed  what  we  call 
Muspelheim.  It  is  a  w^orld  luminous,  glowing,  not  to  be 
dwelt  in  by  strangers,  and  situate  at  the  end  of  the 
earth.  Surtur  holds  his  empire  there.  In  his  hand  there 
shines  a  flaming  sword.'''' 

There  was  a  great  conflagration  between  the  by-gone 
Eden  and  the  present  land  of  stones  and  thistles. 

Is  there  any  other  allusion  besides  this  to  the  fire 
which  accompanied  the  comet  in  Genesis  ? 

Yes,  but  it  is  strangely  out  of  place.  It  is  a  distinct 
description  of  the  pre-glacial  wickedness  of  the  world,  the 
fire  falling  from  heaven,  the  cave-life,  and  the  wide-spread 
destruction  of  humanity  ;  but  the  compiler  of  these  an- 
tique legends  has  located  it  in  a  time  long  subsequent  to 
the  Deluge  of  Noah,  and  in  the  midst  of  a  densely  popu- 
lated world.  It  is  as  if  one  were  to  represent  the  Noachic 
Deluge  as  having  occurred  in  the  time  of  Nero,  in  a  single 
province  of  the  Roman  Empire,  while  the  great  world 
went  on  its  course  unchanged  by  the  catastrophe  which 
must,  if  the  statement  were  true,  have  completely  over- 
whelmed it.  So  we  find  the  story  of  Lot  and  the  destruc- 
tion of  the  cities  of  the  plain  brought  down  to  the  time 


GEXESIS  READ  BY  THE  LIGHT  OF  THE  COMET.     327 

of  Abraham,  when  Egypt  and  Babylon  Avere  in  the  height 
of  their  glory.  And  Lot's  daughters  believed  that  the 
whole  human  family,  except  themselves,  had  been  exter- 
minated ;  while  Abraham  was  quietly  feeding  his  flocks 
in  an  adjacent  country. 

For  if  Lot's  story  is  located  in  its  proper  era,  what 
became  of  Abraham  and  the  Jewish  people,  and  all  the 
then  civilized  nations,  in  this  great  catastrophe "?  And  if 
it  occurred  in  that  age,  why  do  we  hear  nothing  more 
about  so  extraordinary  an  event  in  the  history  of  the  Jews 
or  of  any  other  people  ? 

Mr.  Smith  says  : 

"  The  conduct  of  Lot  in  the  mountain  whither  he  had 
retired  scarcely  admits  of  explanation.  It  has  been  gen- 
erally supposed  that  his  daughters  believed  that  the  whole 
of  the  human  race  were  destroyed,  except  their  father  and 
themselves.  But  how  they  could  have  thought  so,  when 
they  had  pi-eviously  tarried  at  Zoar,  it  is  not  easy  to  con- 
ceive ;  and  we  can  not  but  regard  the  entire  case  as  one  of 
those  problems  which  the  Scriptures  present  as  indeter- 
minate, on  account  of  a  deficiency  of  data  on  which  to 
form  any  satisfactory  conclusion."* 

The  theory  of  this  book  makes  the  whole  story  tan- 
gible, consistent,  and  probable. 

AYe  have  seen  that,  prior  to  the  coming  of  the  comet, 
the  human  race,  according  to  the  legends,  had  abandoned 
itself  to  all  wickedness.     In  the  Norse  Sagas  we  read  : 

"  Brothers  will  fight  together, 
And  become  each  other's  bane  ; 
Sisters'  children 
Their  sib  shall  spoil ; 
Hard  is  the  world, 
Sensual  sins  grow  huge." 

*  "  The  Patriarchal  Age,"  vol.  i,  p.  388. 


328  TEE  LEGENDS. 

In  the  legends  of  the  British  Druids  we  are  told  that 
it  was  "  the  i^rofligacy  of  mankind  "  that  caused  God  to 
send  the  great  disaster.  So,  in  the  Bible  narrative,  we 
read  that,  in  Lot's  time,  God  resolved  on  the  destruction 
of  "the  cities  of  the  plain,"  Sodoni,  (Od,  Ad,)  and  Go- 
morrah, (Go-Meru,)  because  of  the  wickedness  of  man- 
kind : 

Chap,  xviii,  verse  20.  *'  And  the  Lord  said.  Because 
the  cry  of  Sodom  and  Gomoi-rah  is  great,  and  because 
their  sin  is  very  grievous  " — 

therefore  he  determined  to  destroy  them.  When  the 
angels  came  to  Sodom,  the  people  showed  the  most  vil- 
lainous and  depraved  appetites.  The  angels  warned  Lot 
to  flee.  Blindness  (darkness?)  came  upon  the  people  of 
the  city,  so  that  they  could  not  find  the  doors  of  the 
houses.  The  angels  took  Lot  and  his  wife  and  two  daugh- 
ters by  the  hands,  and  led  or  dragged  them  away,  and 
told  them  to  fly  "to  the  mountain,  lest  they  be  consumed." 
There  is  an  interlude  here,  an  inconsistent  interpola- 
tion probably,  where  Lot  stays  at  Zoar,  and  persuades 
the  Lord  to  spare  Zoar  ;  but  soon  after  we  find  all  the 
cities  of  the  plain  destroyed,  and  Lot  and  his  family 
hiding  in  a  cave  in  the  mountain  ;  so  that  Lot's  interces- 
sion seems  to  have  been  of  no  avail  : 

Vei'se  2]:.  " Then  the  Lord  rained  upon  Sodom  and 
upon  Gomorrah  brimstone  and  fire  from  the  Lord  out  of 
heaven''' 

Verse  25.  "And  he  overtlirew  those  cities,  and  all 
the  cities  of  the  plain,  and  all  tlie  inhabitants  of  the  cities, 
and  that  loldch  greio  iqjon  the  ground^ 

It  was  a  complete  destruction  of  all  living  things  in 
that  locality  ;  and  Lot  '^  dwelt  in  a  cave,  he  and  his  two 
daughters." 

And  the  daughters  were  convinced  that  they  were  the 


GEXFSIS  READ  BY  THE  LIGHT  OF  THE  COMET.     329 

last  of  the  human  race  left  alive  on  the  face  of  the  earth, 
notwithstanding  the  fact  that  the  Lord  had  promised 
(chap,  iii,  verse  21),  "I  will  not  overthrow  this  city," 
Zoar  ;  but  Zoar  evidently  was  overthrown.  And  the 
daughters,  rather  than  see  the  human  race  perish,  com- 
mitted incest  with  their  father,  and  became  the  mothers 
of  two  great  and  extensive  tribes  or  races  of  men,  the 
Moabites  and  the  Ammonites. 

This,  also,  looks  very  much  as  if  they  were  indeed  re- 
peopling  an  empty  and  desolated  world. 

To  recapitulate,  we  have  here,  in  due  chronological 
order  : 

1.  The  creation  of  the  heavens  and  the  earth,  and  all 
the  host  of  them. 

2.  The  creation  of  the  jilants,  animals,  and  man. 

3.  The  fair  and  lovely  age  of  the  Pliocene,  the  sum- 
mer-land, when  the  people  went  naked,  or  clothed  them- 
selves in  the  leaves  of  trees  ;  it  was  the  fertile  land  where 
Nature  provided  abundantly  everything  for  her  children. 

4.  The  serpent  appears  and  overthrows  this  Eden. 

5.  Fire  falls  from  heaven  and  destroys  a  large  part  of 
the  human  race. 

G.  A  remnant  take  refuge  in  a  cave. 

7.  Man  is  driven  out  of  the  Edenic  land,  and  a  blaz- 
ing sword,  a  conflagration,  waves  between  him  and  Para- 
dise, between  Niflheim  and  Muspelheim. 

What  next  ? 

We  return  now  to  the  first  chapter  of  this  dislocated 
text  : 

Verse  2.  "And  the  earth  was  icithout  form,  and  void.'''' 

That  is  to  say,  chaos  had  come  in  the  train  of  the 
comet.  Otherwise,  how  can  we  understand  how  God,  as 
stated  in  the  preceding  verse,  has  just  made  the  heavens 


330  THE  LEGEXDS. 

and  the  earth  ?     How  could  his  work  have  been  so  im- 
perfect ? 

^^And  clarJcness  was  iqyon  the  face  of  the  deep.^'* 

This  is  the  primeval  night  referred  to  in  all  the 
legends  ;  the  long  age  of  darkness  upon  the  earth. 

"  And  the  spirit  of  God  moved  upon  the  face  of  the 
waters. " 

The  word  for  spirit,  in  Hebrew,  as  in  Latin,  originally- 
meant  wind ;  and  this  passage  might  be  rendered,  "a 
mighty  wind  swept  the  face  of  the  waters."  This  wind 
represents,  I  take  it,  the  great  cyclones  of  the  Drift  Age. 

Verse  3.  "  And  God  said,  Let  there  be  light:  and  there 
was  light." 

The  sun  and  moon  had  not  yet  aj^peared,  but  the 
dense  mass  of  clouds,  pouring  their  waters  upon  the 
earth,  had  gradually,  as  Job  expresses  it,  "  wearied  "  them- 
selves,— they  had  grown  thin  ;  and  the  light  began  to 
appear,  at  least  sufficiently  to  mark  the  distinction  be- 
tween day  and  night. 

Verse  4.  "  And  God  saw  the  light  :  that  it  was  good  ; 
and  God  divided  the  light  from  the  darkness." 

Verse  5.  "  And  God  called  the  light  day,  and  the  dark- 
ness he  called  night.  And  the  evening  and  the  morning 
were  the  first  day." 

That  is  to  say,  in  subdividing  the  phenomena  of  this 
dark  period,  when  there  was  neither  moon  nor  sun  to  mark 
the  time,  mankind  drew  the  first  line  of  subdivision,  very 
naturally,  at  that  point  of  time,  (it  may  have  been  weeks, 
or  months,  or  years,)  when  first  the  distinction  between 
night  and  day  became  faintly  discernible,  and  men  could 
again  begin  to  count  time. 

But  this  gain  of  light  had  been  at  the  expense  of  the 


GENESIS  READ  BY  THE  LIGHT  OF  THE  COMET    331 

clouds  ;  they  had  given  down  their  moisture  in  immense 
and  perpetual  rains  ;  the  low-lying  lands  of  the  earth 
were  overflowed  ;  the  very  mountains,  while  not  under 
water,  were  covered  by  the  continual  floods  of  rain.  There 
w^as  water  everywhere.  To  appreciate  this  condition  of 
things,  one  has  but  to  look  at  the  geological  maps  of  the 
amount  of  land  known  to  have  been  overflowed  by  water 
during  the  so-called  Glacial  Age  in  Euro])e. 
And  so  the  narrative  proceeds  : 

Verse  6.  "And  God  said,  Let  there  be  a  firmament  in 
the  midst  of  the  waters,  and  let  it  divide  the  waters 
from  the  waters." 

This  has  been  incomprehensible  to  the  critics.  It  has 
been  supposed  that  by  this  "  firmament  "  was  meant  the 
heavens  ;  and  that  the  waters  "  above  the  firmament " 
were  the  clouds  ;  and  it  has  been  said  that  this  was  a 
barbarian's  conception,  to  wit,  that  the  unbounded  and 
illimitable  space,  into  which  the  human  eye,  aided  by  the 
telescope,  can  penetrate  for  thousands  of  billions  of  miles, 
was  a  blue  arch  a  few  hundred  feet  high,  on  top  of  which 
were  the  clouds  ;  and  that  the  rain  was  simj)ly  the  leak- 
ing of  the  water  through  this  roof  of  the  earth.  And 
men  have  said  :  "  Call  ye  this  real  history,  or  inspired 
narrative  ?  Did  God  know  no  more  about  the  nature  of 
the  heavens  than  this  ?  " 

And  Religion  has  been  puzzled  to  reply. 

But  read  Genesis  in  this  new  light :  There  was  water 
everywhere  ;  floods  from  the  clouds,  floods  from  the  melt- 
ing ice  ;  floods  on  the  land,  where  the  i-eturn  of  the 
evaporated  moisture  was  not  able,  by  the  channel-ways  of 
the  earth,  to  yet  find  its  way  back  to  the  oceans. 

"And  God  said.  Let  there  be  a  firmament  in  the  midst 
of  the  waters,  and  let  it  divide  the  waters  from  the  waters." 


332  THE  LEGENDS. 

That  is  to  say,  i5rst  a  great  island  appeared  dividing 
the  waters  from  the  waters.  This  was  "the  island  of 
the  innocent,"  referred  to  by  Job,  where  the  human  race 
did  not  utterly  perish.  AYe  shall  see  more  about  it  here- 
after. 

"7.  And  God  made  the  firmament,  and  divided  the 
waters  which  were  under  the  firmament  from  the  waters 
which  were  above  the  firmament  :  and  it  was  so. 

"  8.  And  God  called  the  firmament  Heaven.  And  the 
evening  and  the  morning  were  the  second  day." 

The  Hebrew  Rohid  is  translated  stereoma,  or  solidity , 
in  the  Septuagint  version.  It  meant  solid  land — not  empty 
space. 

And  if  man  was  not  or  had  not  yet  been  on  earth, 
whence  could  the  name  Heaven  have  been  derived  ?  For 
whom  should  God  have  named  it,  if  there  were  no  human 
ears  to  catch  the  sound  ?  God  needs  no  lingual  appara- 
tus— he  speaks  no  human  speech. 

The  true  meaning  pi'obably  is,  that  this  was  the  region 
that  had  been  for  ages,  before  the  Drift  and  the  Dark- 
ness, regarded  as  the  home  of  the  godlike,  civilized  race  ; 
situated  high  above  the  ocean,  '■'■in  the  midst  of  the  ica- 
ters,"  in  mid-sea  ;  precipitous  and  mountainous,  it  was  the 
fii'st  region  to  clear  itself  of  the  descending  torrents. 

What  next  ? 

"9.  And  God  said,  Let  the  waters  under  the  heaven 
be  gathei'ed  together  unto  one  place,  and  let  the  dry  land 
appear  :  and  it  was  so. 

"  10.  And  God  called  the  dry  land  Earth  ;  and  the 
gathering  together  of  the  waters  called  he  Seas  :  and  God 
saw  that  it  was  good." 

This  may  be  either  a  recapitulation  of  the  facts  already 
stated,  or  it  may  refer  to  the  gradual  draining  off  of  the 
continents,  by  the  passing  away  of  the  waters  ;  the  con- 


GFy^SIS  BEAD  BY  THE  LIGHT  OF  THE  COMET.     333 

tinents  being  distingiushed  in  order  of  time  from  tlie 
island  "  in  the  midst  of  the  waters." 

"11.  And  God  said,  Let  the  earth  bring  forth  grass, 
the  herb  yielding  seed,  and  the  fruit-tree  yielding  fruit 
after  his  kind,  whose  seed  is  in  itself,  upon  the  earth  :  and 
it  was  so." 

It  has  been  objected,  as  I  have  shown,  that  this  narra- 
tive was  false,  because  science  has  proved  that  the  fruit- 
trees  did  not  really  precede  in  order  of  creation  the  creep- 
ing things  and  the  fish,  which,  we  are  told,  were  not  made 
until  the  fifth  day,  two  days  afterward.  But  if  we  will 
suppose  that,  as  the  water  disappeared  from  the  land,  the 
air  grew  warmer  by  the  light  breaking  through  the  dimin- 
ishing clouds,  the  grass  began  to  spring  up  again,  as  told 
in  the  ISTorse,  Chinese,  and  other  legends,  and  the  fruit- 
trees,  of  different  kinds,  began  to  grow  again,  for  we  are 
told  they  produced  each  "  after  his  kind." 

And  we  learn  "  that  its  seed  is  in  itself  iqyon  the  earth.''' 
Does  this  mean  that  the  seeds  of  these  trees  were  buried 
in  the  earth,  and  their  vitality  not  destroyed  by  the  great 
visitation  of  fire,  water,  and  ice  ? 

And  on  the  fourth  day  "  God  made  two  great  lights," 
the  sun  and  moon.  If  this  were  a  narration  of  the  original 
creation  of  these  great  orbs,  we  should  be  told  that  they 
were  made  exclusively  to  give  light.  But  this  is  not  the 
case.  The  light  was  there  already  ;  it  had  appeared  on 
the  evening  of  the  first  day  ;  they  were  made,  we  are 
told,  to  "  divide  the  dq,y  from  the  night."  Day  and  night 
already  existed,  but  in  a  confused  and  imperfect  way  ; 
even  the  day  was  dark  and  cloudy  ;  but,  with  the  return 
of  the  sun,  the  distinction  of  day  and  night  became  once 
more  clear. 

"14.  And  God  said  .  .  .  Let  them  be  for  signs  and 
for  seasons,  and  for  days  and  years." 


334  THE  LEGEXDS. 

That  is  to  say,  let  them  be  studied,  as  they  were  of 
old,  as  astronomical  and  astrological  signs,  whose  in- 
fluences control  affairs  on  earth.  We  have  seen  that  in 
many  legends  a  good  deal  is  said  about  the  constellations, 
and  the  division  of  time  in  accordance  with  the  move- 
ments of  the  heavenly  bodies,  which  was  made  soon  after 
the  catastrophe  : 

"  20.  And  God  said,  Let  the  waters  bring  forth  abun- 
dantly the  moving  creature  that  hath  life,  and  fowls  that 
may  fly  above  the  earth  in  the  open  firmament  of  heaven." 

That  is  to  say,  the  moving  creatures,  the  fishes  which 
still  live,  which  have  escaped  destruction  in  the  deep 
waters  of  the  oceans  or  lakes,  and  the  fowls  which  were 
flying  wildly  in  the  open  firmament,  are  commanded  to 
bring  forth  abundantly,  to  "  replenish  "  the  desolated  seas 
and  earth. 

"23.  And  the  evening  and  the  morning  were  the  fifth 
day. 

"  24.  And  God  said,  Let  the  earth  bring  forth  the  liv- 
ing creature  after  his  kind,  cattle,  and  creeping  thing,  and 
beast  of  the  earth  after  his  kind  :  and  it  was  so." 

God  does  not,  in  this,  create  them  ;  he  calls  them  forth 
from  the  earth,  from  the  caves  and  dens  where  they  had 
been  hiding,  each  after  his  kind ;  they  were  already  di- 
vided into  sj)ecies  and  genera. 

"  28.  And  God  blessed  them,"  (the  human  family,) 
"  and  God  said  unto  them.  Be  fruitful,  and  multiply  and 
REPLENISH  the  earthy 

Surely  the  poor,  desolated  world  needed  replenishing, 
restocking.  But  how  could  the  word  "  replenish  "  be  ap- 
plied to  a  new  world,  never  before  inhabited  ? 

We  have  seen  that  in  chapter  ii  (verses  16  and  17)  God 
especially  limited  man  and  enjoined  him  not  to  eat  of  the 


GENESIS  READ  BY  THE  LIGHT  OF  THE  COMET.     335 

fruit  of  the  ti'ee  of  knowledge  ;  while  in  v.  22,  ch.  iii,  it 
is  evident  that  there  was  another  tree,  "  the  tree  of  life," 
which  God  did  not  intend  that  man  should  enjoy  the  fruit 
of.  But  with  the  close  of  the  Tertiary  period  and  the 
Drift  Age  all  this  was  changed  :  these  trees,  whatever 
they  signified,  had  been  swept  away,  "the  blazing  sword" 
shone  between  man  and  the  land  where  they  grew,  or 
had  grown  ;  and  hence,  after  the  Age  of  Darkness,  God 
puts  no  such  restraint  or  injunction  upon  the  human 
family.     We  read  : 

Ch.  i,  V.  29.  "And  God  said,  Behold,  I  have  given  you 
every  herb  bearing  seed,  which  is  upon  the  face  of  all  the 
earth,  and  every  tree,  in  the  which  is  the  fruit  of  a  tree 
yielding  seed  ;  to  you  it  shall  he  for  meat.'''' 

With  what  reason,  if  the  text  is  in  its  true  order, 
could  God  have  given  man,  in  the  first  chapter,  the  right 
to  eat  the  fruit  of  every  tree,  and  in  the  following  chap- 
ters have  consigned  the  whole  race  to  ruin  for  eating  the 
fruit  of  one  particular  tree  ? 

But  after  the  so-called  Glacial  Age  all  limitations 
were  removed.  The  tree  of  knowledge  and  the  tree  of 
life  had  disappeared  for  ever.     The  Drift  covered  them. 

Reader,  waive  your  natural  prejudices,  and  ask  your- 
self whether  this  proposed  readjustment  of  the  Great 
Book  does  not  place  it  thoroughly  in  accord  with  all  the 
revelations  of  science  ;  whether  it  does  not  answer  all  the 
objections  that  have  been  made  against  the  reasonableness 
of  the  story  ;  and  whether  there  is  in  it  anything  incon- 
sistent with  the  sanctity  of  the  record,  the  essentials  of 
religion,  or  the  glory  of  God. 

Instead  of  being  compelled  to  argue,  as  Religion  now 
does,  that  the  whole  heavens  and  the  earth,  with  its  twenty 
miles  in  thickness  of  stratified  rocks,  were  made  in  six 
actual  days,  or  to  interpret  "  days  "  to  mean  vast  periods 


336  THE  LEGEXDS. 

of  time,  notwithstanding  the  record  speaks  of  "  the  even- 
ing and  the  morning"  constituting  these  "days,"  as  if 
they  were  really  subdivisions  of  sun-marked  time  ;  we 
here  see  that  the  vast  Creation,  and  tbe  great  lapses  of 
geologic  time,  all  lie  far  back  of  the  day  when  darkness 
was  on  the  face  of  the  deep  ;  and  that  tbe  six  days  which 
followed,  and  in  which  the  world  was  gradually  restored 
to  its  previous  condition,  w^ere  the  natural  subdivisions 
into  which  events  arranged  themselves.  The  Chinese 
divided  this  period  of  reconstruction  into  "  branches  "  or 
*'  stems  "  ;  the  race  fi'om  whom  the  Jews  received  their 
traditions  divided  it  into  days. 

The  first  subdivision  was,  as  I  have  said,  that  of  the 
twilight  age,  when  light  began  to  invade  the  total  dark- 
ness ;  it  was  subdivided  again  into  the  evening  and  the 
morning,  as  the  light  grew  stronger. 

The  next  subdivision  of  time  was  that  period,  still  in 
the  twilight,  when  the  floods  fell  and  covered  a  large  part 
of  the  earth,  but  gradually  gathered  themselves  together 
in  the  lower  lands,  and  left  the  mountains  bare.  And 
still  the  light  kept  increasing,  and  the  period  was  again 
subdivided  into  evening  and  morning. 

And  why  does  the  record,  in  each  case,  tell  us  that 
"the  evening  and  the  morning"  constituted  the  day,  in- 
stead of  the  mornino;  and  the  evenino?  The  answer  is 
plain  : — mankind  were  steadily  advancing  from  darkness 
to  light  ;  each  stage  terminating  in  greater  clearness  and 
brightness  ;  they  were  moving  steadily  forward  to  the 
perfect  dawn.  And  it  is  a  curious  fact  that  the  Israelites, 
even  now,  commence  the  day  with  the  period  of  dark- 
ness :  they  begin  their  Sabbath  on  Friday  at  sunset. 

The  third  subdivision  was  that  in  which  the  continents 
cleared  themselves  more  and  more  of  the  floods,  and  the 
increasing  light  and  warmth  called  forth  grass  and  the 


GUXFSIS  READ  BY  THE  LIGHT  OF  THE  COMET.     337 

trees,  and  clothed  nature  in  a  mantle  of  green.  Man  had 
come  out  of  his  cave,  and  there  were  scattered  remnants 
of  the  animal  kingdom  here  and  there,  but  the  world,  in 
the  main,  was  manless  and  lifeless — a  scene  of  waste  and 
desolation. 

In  the  fourth  subdivision  of  time,  the  sun,  moon,  and 
stars  appeared  ; — dimly,  and  wrapped  in  clouds,  in  the 
evening  ;  clearer  and  brighter  in  the  morning. 

In  the  next  subdivision  of  time,  the  fish,  which  spawn 
by  the  million,  and  the  birds,  which  quadruple  their 
numbers  in  a  year,  began  to  multiply  and  scatter  them- 
selves, and  appear  everywhere  through  the  waters  and  on 
the  land.  And  still  the  light  kept  increasing,  and  "the 
evening  and  the  morning  were  the  fifth  day." 

And  on  the  sixth  day,  man  and  the  animals,  slower  to 
increase,  and  requiring  a  longer  period  to  reach  maturity, 
began  to  spread  and  show  themselves  everywhere  on  the 
face  of  the  earth. 

There  was  a  long  interval  before  man  sent  out  his 
colonies  and  repossessed  the  desolated  continents.  In 
Europe,  as  I  have  shown,  twelve  feet  of  stalagmite  inter- 
venes in  the  caves  between  the  remains  of  pre-glacial  and 
post-glacial  man.  As  this  deposit  forms  at  a  very  slow 
rate,  it  indicates  that,  for  long  ages  after  the  great  de- 
struction, man  did  not  dwell  in  Europe.  Slowly,  "like  a 
great  blot  that  spreads,"  the  race  expanded  again  over  its 
ancient  hunting-grounds. 

And  still  the  skies  grew  brighter,  the  storms  grew 
less,  the  earth  grew  warmer,  and  "the  evening  and  the 
morning  "  constituted  the  sixth  subdivision  of  time. 

And  this  process  is  still  going  on.  Mr.  James  Geikie 
says  : 

"  We  are  sure  of  this,  that  since  the  deposition  of  the 
shelly  clays,  and  the  disappearance  of  the  latest  local  gla- 
16 


338  THE  LEGENDS. 

ciers,  there  have  been  no  oscillations,  but  only  a  gradual 
amelioration  of  climate.''''  * 

The  world,  like  Milton's  lion,  is  still  trying  to  disen- 
gage its  hinder  limbs  from  the  superincumbent  weight  of 
the  Drift.  Every  snow-storm,  every  chilling  blast  that 
blows  out  from  the  frozen  lips  of  the  icy  North,  is  but  a 
reminiscence  of  Ragnarok. 

But  the  great  cosmical  catastrophe  was  substantially 
over  with  the  close  of  the  sixth  day.  We  are  now  in 
the  seventh  day.  The  darkness  has  gone  ;  the  sun  has 
come  back  ;  the  waters  have  returned  to  their  bounds  ; 
vegetation  has  resumed  its  place  ;  the  fish,  the  birds,  the 
animals,  men,  are  once  more  populous  in  ocean,  air,  and 
on  the  land  ;  the  comet  is  gone,  and  the  orderly  processes 
of  nature  are  around  us,  and  God  is  "  resting  "  from  the 
great  task  of  restoring  his  afflicted  world. 

The  necessity  for  some  such  interpretation  as  this  was 
apparent  to  the  early  fathers  of  the  Christian  Church, 
although  they  possessed  no  theory  of  a  comet.  St.  Basil, 
St.  Csesarius,  and  Origen,  long  before  any  such  theory 
was  dreamed  of,  argued  that  the  sun,  moon,  and  stars 
existed  from  the  beginning,  but  that  they  did  not  appear 
until  the  fourth  day.  "  Who,"  says  Origen,  "  that  has 
sense,  can  think  that  the  first,  second,  and  third  days  were 
without  sun,  moon,  or  stai's  ?  " 

But  where  were  they  ?  Why  did  they  not  appear  ? 
What  obscured  them  ? 

What  could  obscure  them  but  dense  clouds  ?  Where 
did  the  clouds  come  from  ?  They  were  vaporized  water. 
What  vaporized  the  water  and  caused  this  darkness  on 
the  face  of  the  deep,  so  dense  that  the  sun,  moon,  and 
stars  did  not  appear  until  the  world  had  clothed  itself 

*  "  The  Great  Ice  Age,"  p.  438. 


GENESIS  READ  BY  THE  LIGHT  OF  THE  COMET.    339 

again  in  vegetation  ?  Tremendous  heat.  Where  did  the 
heat  come  from  ?  If  it  was  not  caused  by  contact  with  a 
comet,  what  teas  it  ?  And  if  it  was  not  caused  by  contact 
with  a  comet,  how  do  you  exj)lain  the  blazing  sword  at 
the  gate  of  Eden  ;  the  fire  falling  from  heaven  on  "  the 
cities  of  the  plain  "  ;  and  the  fire  that  fell  on  Job's  sheep 
and  camels  and  consumed  them  ;  and  that  drove  Job  to 
clamber  by  ropes  down  into  the  narrow-mouthed  bottom- 
less cave  ;  where  he  tells  us  of  the  leviathan,  the  twisted, 
the  undulating  one,  that  cast  down  stones  in  the  mire, 
and  made  the  angels  in  heaven  to  tremble,  and  the  deej) 
to  boil  like  a  pot  ?  And  is  it  not  more  reasonable  to  sup- 
pose that  this  sublime  religious  poem,  called  the  Book  of 
Job,  represents  the  exaltation  of  the  human  soul  under 
the  stress  of  the  greatest  calamity  our  race  has  ever  en- 
dured, than  to  believe  that  it  is  simply  a  record  of  the 
sufferings  of  some  obscure  Arab  chief  from  a  loathsome 
disease?  Surely  inspiration  should  reach  us  through  a 
different  channel  ;  and  there  should  be  some  proportion 
between  the  grandeur  of  the  thoughts  and  the  dignity  of 
the  events  which  produced  them. 

And  if  Origen  is  right,  and  it  is  absurd  to  suppose 
that  the  sun,  moon,  and  stars  were  not  created  until  the 
third  day,  then  the  sacred  text  is  dislocated,  transposed  ; 
and  the  second  chapter  narrates  events  which  really  oc- 
curred before  those  mentioned  in  the  first  chapter  ;  and 
the  "  darkness "  is  something  which  came  millions  of 
years  after  that  "Beginning,"  in  which  God  made  the 
earth,  and  the  heavens,  and  all  the  host  of  them. 

In  conclusion,  let  us  observe  how  fully  the  Bible 
record  accords  with  the  statements  of  the  Druidical, 
Hindoo,  Scandinavian,  and  other  legends,  and  with  the 
great  unwi'itten  theory  which  underlies  all  our  religion. 
Here  we  have  : — 


340  THE  LEGENDS. 

1.  The  Golden  Age  ;  the  Paradise. 

2.  The  universal  moral  degeneracy  of  mankind  ;  the 
age  of  crime  and  violence. 

3.  God's  vengeance. 

4.  The  serpent  ;  the  fire  from  heaven. 

5.  The  cave-life  and  the  darkness. 

6.  The  cold  ;  the  struggle  to  live. 

7.  The  "  Fall  of  Man,"  from  virtue  to  vice  ;  from 
plenty  to  poverty  ;  from  civilization  to  barbarism  ;  from 
the  Tertiary  to  the  Drift ;  from  Eden  to  the  gravel. 

8.  Reconstruction  and  regeneration. 

Can  all  this  be  accident  ?    Can  all  this  mean  nothing  ? 


WAS  PRE-GLACIAL  MAN  CIVILIZED?  341 


PART  IV. 
Conclusions 


CHAPTER  I. 

WAS  PEE-GLACIAL  MAN  CIVILIZED f 

We  come  now  to  another  and  very  interesting  ques- 
tion : 

In  what  stage  of  development  was  mankind  when  the 
Drift  fell  upon  the  earth  ? 

It  is,  of  course,  difficult  to  attain  to  certainties  in  the 
consideration  of  an  age  so  remote  as  this.  We  are,  as  it 
were,  crawling  upon  our  hands  and  knees  into  the  dark 
cavern  of  an  abysmal  past  ;  we  know  not  whether  that 
which  we  encounter  is  a  stone  or  a  bone  ;  we  can  only 
grope  our  way.  I  feel,  however,  that  it  is  proper  to  pre- 
sent such  facts  as  I  possess  touching  this  curious  question. 

The  conclusion  at  which  I  have  arrived  is,  that  man- 
kind, prior  to  the  Drift,  had,  in  some  limited  localities, 
reached  a  high  stage  of  civilization,  and  that  many  of 
our  most  important  inventions  and  discoveries  were  known 
in  the  pre-glacial  age.  Among  these  were  pottery,  metal- 
lurgy, architecture,  engraving,  carving,  the  use  of  money, 
the  domestication  of  some  of  our  animals,  and  even  the 
use  of  an  alphabet.  I  shall  present  the  proofs  of  this 
startling  conclusion,  and  leave  the  reader  to  judge  for 
himself. 


342  COXCL  LESIONS. 

While  this  civilized,  cultivated  race  occupied  a  part 
of  the  earth's  surface,  the  remainder  of  the  world  was 
peopled  by  races  more  rude,  barbarous,  brutal,  and  animal- 
like than  anything  we  know  of  on  our  earth  to-day. 

In  the  first  place,  I  shall  refer  to  the  legends  of  man- 
kind, wherein  they  depict  the  condition  of  our  race  in  the 
pre-glacial  time.  If  these  statements  stood  alone,  we 
might  dismiss  them  from  consideration,  for  there  would 
be  a  strong  probability  that  later  ages,  in  repeating  the 
legends,  would  attribute  to  their  remote  ancestors  the 
civilized  advantages  which  they  themselves  enjoyed  ;  but 
it  will  be  seen  that  these  statements  are  confirmed  by 
the  remains  of  man  which  have  been  dug  out  of  the  earth, 
and  upon  which  we  can  rely  to  a  much  greater  extent. 

First,  as  to  the  legends  : 

If  I  have  correctly  interpreted  Job  as  a  religious 
drama,  founded  on  the  fall  of  the  Drift,  then  we  must 
remember  that  Job  describes  the  people  overtaken  by  the 
catastrophe  as  a  highly  civilized  race.  They  had  passed 
the  stage  of  worshiping  sticks  and  stones  and  idols,  and 
had  reached  to  a  knowledge  of  the  one  true  God  ;  they 
were  agriculturists  ;  they  raised  flocks  of  sheep  and  cam- 
els ;  they  built  houses  ;  they  had  tamed  the  horse  ;  they 
had  progi-essed  so  far  in  astronomical  knowledge  as  to 
have  mapped  out  the  heavens  into  constellations  ;  they 
wrote  books,  consequently  they  possessed  an  alphabet ; 
they  engraved  inscriptions  upon  the  rocks. 

But  it  may  be  said  truly  that  the  book  of  Job,  al- 
though it  may  be  really  a  description  of  the  Drift  catas- 
trophe, was  not  necessarily  written  at  the  time  of,  or  even 
immediately  after,  that  event.  So  gigantic  and  terrible  a 
thing  must  have  been  the  overwhelming  consideration 
and  memory  of  mankind  for  thousands  of  years  after  it 
occurred.     We  will  see  that  its  impress  still  exists  on  the 


WAS  PRE-GLACIAL  MA^  CIVILIZED?  343 

imagination  of  the  race.  Hence  we  may  assign  to  the 
book  of  Job  an  extraordinary  antiquity,  and  nevertheless 
it  may  have  been  written  long  ages  after  the  events  to 
which  it  refers  occurred  ;  and  the  writer  may  have  clothed 
those  events  with  the  associations  and  conditions  of  the 
age  of  its  composition.  Let  us,  then,  go  forward  to  the 
other  legends,  for  in  such  a  case  we  can  prove  nothing. 
"NV'e  can  simply  build  up  cumulative  probabilities. 

In  Ovid  we  read  that  the  Earth,  when  the  dread  afflic- 
tion fell  upon  her,  cried  out  : 

"  O  sovereign  of  the  gods,  if  thou  approvest  of  this, 
if  I  have  deserved  it,  why  do  thy  lightnings  linger  ?  .  .  . 
And  dost  thou  give  this  as  my  recompense  ?  This  as  the 
reward  of  my  fertility  and  of  my  duty,  in  that  I  endure 
xoounds  from  the  crooked  ploio  and  harroics,  and  am 
harassed  all  the  year  through  ?  In  that  I  supply  green 
leaves  to  the  cattle,  and  coim,  a  wholesome  food  for  man- 
kind, and  frankincense  for  yourselves  ?  " 

Here  we  see  that  Ovid  received  from  the  ancient  tra- 
ditions of  his  race  the  belief  that  when  the  Drift  Age 
came  man  was  already  an  agriculturist ;  he  had  invented 
the  plow  and  the  harrow  ;  he  had  domesticated  the  cat- 
tle ;  he  had  discovered  or  developed  some  of  the  cereals  ; 
and  he  possessed  a  religion  in  which  incense  was  burned 
before  the  god  or  gods.  The  legend  of  Phaeton  further 
indicates  that  man  had  tamed  the  horse  and  had  invented 
wheeled  vehicles. 

In  the  Hindoo  story  5f  the  coming  of  the  demon  Ra- 
vana,  the  comet,  we  read  that  he  carried  off  Sita,  the 
wife  of  Rama,  the  sun  ;  and  that  her  name  indicates  that 
she  represented  "  i\ie  furrowed  earth^''  to  wit,  a  condition 
of  development  in  which  man  plowed  the  fields  and  raised 
crops  of  food. 

When  we  turn  to  the  Scandinavian  legends,  we  see 


344  CONCLUSIONS. 

that  those  who  transmitted  them  from  the  early  ages  be- 
lieved that  pre-glacial  man  was  civilized.  The  Asas,  the 
godlike,  superior  race,  dwelt,  we  are  told,  "in  stone 
houses." 

In  describing,  in  the  Elder  Edda,  the  coiTupt  condi- 
tion of  mankind  before  the  great  catastrophe  occurred, 
the  world,  we  are  told,  was  given  over  to  all  manner  of 
sin  and  wickedness.     We  read  : 

"  Brothers  will  fight  together, 
And  become  each  other's  bane  ; 
Sisters'  children 
Their  sib  shall  spoil. 
Hard  is  the  world  ; 
Sensual  sins  grow  huge. 
There  are  aa-e-ages,  sword-2igQ& — 
Shields  are  cleft  in  twain, — 
There  are  wind-ages,  murder-ages, 
Ere  the  world  falls  dead."* 

When  the  great  day  of  wrath  comes,  Heimdal  blows 
in  the  Gjallar-Ao?*«,  Odin  rides  to  Mimer's  well,  Odin  puts 
on  his  golden  helmet,  the  Asas  hold  counsel  before  their 
stone  doors. 

All  these  things  indicate  a  people  who  had  passed  far 
beyond  barbarism.  Here  we  have  axes,  swords,  helmets, 
shields,  musical  instruments,  domesticated  horses,  the  use 
of  gold,  and  stone  buildings.  And  after  the  great  storm 
was  over,  and  the  remnant  of  mankind  crept  out  of  the 
caves,  and  came  back  to  reocciipy  the  houses  of  the  slain 
millions,  we  read  of  the  delight  with  which  they  found  in 
the  grass  "  the  golden  tablets  "  of  the  Asas — additional 
proof  that  they  worked  in  the  metals,  and  possessed  some 
kind  of  a  written  language  ;  they  also  had  "  the  runes," 
or  runic  letters  of  Odin. 

*  "  The  Vala's  Prophecy,"  48,  49. 


WAS  PRE-GLACIAL  AIAN  CIVILIZED?  345 

In  the  Norse  legends  we  read  that  Loke,  the  evil 
genius,  carried  off  Iduna;  and  her  apples. 

And  when  we  turn  to  the  American  legends,  similar 
statements  j^resent  themselves. 

We  see  the  people,  immediately  after  the  catastrophe, 
sending  a  messenger  to  the  happy  eastern  land,  over  the 
sea,  by  a  bridge,  to  procure  drums  and  other  musical  in- 
struments ;  we  learn  from  the  Miztecs  that  while  the 
darkness  yet  prevailed,  the  people  built  a  sumptuous  pal- 
ace, a  masterpiece  of  skill,  and  on  the  top  of  it  they 
placed  an  axe  of  copper,  the  edge  being  uppermost,  and 
on  this  axe  the  heavens  rested.* 

The  Navajos,  shut  up  in  their  cave,  had  flute-players 
with  them.  The  Peruvians  were  dug  out  of  their  cave 
with  a  golden  spade.  In  the  Tahoe  legend,  we  read  that 
the  superior  race  compelled  the  inferior  to  build  a  great 
temple  for  their  protection  from  floods  ;  and  the  oppressed 
people  escaped  in  canoes,  while  the  world  blazes  behind 
them. 

Soon  after  the  Navajos  came  out  of  the  cave,  we  find 
them,  according  to  the  legend,  possessed  of  water-jars, 
and  we  have  references  to  the  division  of  the  heavens 
into  constellations. 

In  the  Arabian  legend  of  the  City  of  Brass,  we  are 
told  that  the  people  who  were  destroyed  were  great 
architects,  metallurgists,  agriculturists,  and  machinists, 
and  that  they  possessed  a  written  language. 

We  turn  now  to  the  more  reliable  evidences  of  man's 
condition,  which  have  been  exhumed  from  the  caves  and 
the  Drift. 

In  the  seventeenth  century,  Fray  Pedro  Simon  relates 
that  some  miners,  running  an  adit  into  a  hill  near  Callao, 

*  Bancroft's  "  Native  Races,"  vol.  iii,  p.  71. 


346  CONCLUSIONS. 

"  met  with  a  ship,  which  had  on  top  of  it  the  great  mass 
of  the  hill,  and  did  not  agree  in  its  make  and  appearance 
with  our  ships," 

Sir  John  Clerk  describes  a  canoe  found  near  Edinburgh, 
in  1726.  "  The  washings  of  the  river  Carron  discovered 
a  boat  thirteen  or  fourteen  feet  under  ground ;  it  is  thirty- 
six  feet  long  and  four  and  a  half  broad,  all  of  one  piece 
of  oak.  There  were  several  strata  above  it,  such  as  loam, 
clay,  shells,  moss,  sand,  and  gravel."  * 

Boucher  de  Perthes  found  remains  of  man  thirty  to 
forty  feet  below  the  surface  of  the  earth. 

In  the  following  we  have  the  evidence  that  the  pre- 
glacial  race  was  acquainted  with  the  use  of  fire,  and 
cooked  their  food  : 

"  In  the  construction  of  a  canal  between  Stockholm 
and  Gothenburg,  it  was  necessary  to  cut  through  one  of 
those  hills  called  osars,  or  erratic  blocks,  which  were  de- 
posited by  the  Drift  ice  during  the  glacial  epoch.  Be- 
neath an  immense  accumulation  of  osars,  with  shells  and 
sand,  there  was  discovered  in  the  deepest  layer  of  subsoil, 
at  a  depth  of  about  sixty  feet,  a  circular  mass  of  stones, 
forming  a  hearth,  in  the  middle  of  which  there  were  wood- 
coals.  Xo  other  hand  than  that  of  man  could  have  per- 
formed the  work."  f 

In  the  State  of  Louisiana,  on  Petite  Anse  Island,  re- 
markable disco vei'ies  have  been  made.  J 

At  considerable  depths  below  the  surface  of  the  earth, 
fifteen  to  twenty  feet,  immediately  overlying  the  salt- 
rocks,  and  underneath  what  Dr.  Foster  believes  to  be  the 
equivalent  of  the  Drift  in  Europe,  "  associated  with  the 
bones  of  elephants  and  other  huge  extinct  quadrupeds," 
"  incredible  quantities  of  pottery  were  found  "  ;  in  some 

*  Tylor's  "  Early  Mankind,"  p.  330. 

\  Maclean's  "Manual  of  Antiquity  of  Man,"  p.  60;  Buthner,  p.  242. 

X  Foster's  "  Prehistoric  Races,"  p.  56,  etc. 


WAS  rRE-GLACIAL  31  AN   CIVILIZED? 


347 


cases  these  remains  of  pottery  formed  "  veritable  strata, 
three  and  six  inches  thick "  ;  in  many  cases  the  bones  of 
the  mastodon  were  found  above  these  strata  of  pottery. 
Fragments  of  baskets  and  matting  were  also  found. 

Here  we  have  evidence  of  the  long-continued  occupa- 
tion of  this  spot  by  man  prior  to  the  Drift  Age,  and  that 
the  human  family  had  progressed  far  enough  to  manu- 
facture pottery,  and  weave  baskets  and  matting. 

The  cave  of  Chaleux,  Belgium,  was  buried  by  a  mass 
of  rubbish  caused  by  the  falling  in  of  the  roof,  conse- 
quently preserving  all  its  implements.  There  were  found 
the  split  bones  of  mammals,  and  the  bones  of  birds  and 
fishes.  There  was  an  immense  number  of  objects,  chiefly 
manufactured  from  reindeer-horn,  such  as  needles,  arrow- 
heads, daggers,  and  hooks.  Besides  these,  there  were  or- 
naments made  of  shells, 
pieces  of  slate  with  en- 
graved figures,  mathe- 
matical lines,  remains  of 
very  coarse  pottery, 
hearthstones,  ashes,  char- 
coal, and  last,  but  not 
least,  thirty  thousand 
worked  flints  mingled 
with  the  broken  bones. 
In  the  hearth,  placed  in 
the  center  of  the  cave, 
was  discovered  a  stone, 
with  certain  but  unin- 
telligible signs  engraved 
upon  it.  M.  Dupont  also  found  about  twenty  pounds  of 
the  bones  of  the  water-rat,  either  scorched  or  roasted.* 


Earthen  Vase,  found  in  the  Cave 
OF  FuEFOoz,  Belgium. 


*  Maclean's  "  Antiquity  of  Man,"  p.  87. 


348  CONCLUSIOXS. 

Here  we  have  the  evidence  that  the  people  who  in- 
habited this  cave,  or  some  race  with  whom  they  hekl  in- 
tercourse, manufactured  pottery  ;  that  they  wore  clothing 
which  they  sewed  with  needles  ;  that  they  used  the  how 
and  arrow  ;  that  they  caught  fish  with  hooks  ;  thot  they 
ornamented  themselves  ;  that  they  cooked  their  food  ; 
that  they  engraved  on  stone  ;  and  that  they  had  already 
reached  some  kind  of  primitive  alphabet,  in  which  signs 
were  used  to  represent  things. 

We  have  already  seen,  (page  124,  ante,)  that  there  is 
reason  to  believe  that  pre-glacial  Europe  contained  a  very 
barbarous  race,  repi'esented  by  the  Neanderthal  skull,  side 
by  side  with  a  cultivated  race,  represented  by  the  fine 
lines  and  full  brow  of  the  Engis  skull.  The  latter  race,  I 
have  suggested,  may  have  come  among  the  former  as 
traders,  or  have  been  captured  in  war  ;  precisely  as  to- 
day in  Central  Africa  the  skulls  of  adventurous,  civilized 
Portuguese  or  Englishmen  or  Americans  might  be  found 
side  by  side  with  the  rude  skulls  of  the  savage  popiilations 
of  the  country.  The  possession  of  a  piece  of  pottery,  or 
carving,  by  an  African  tribe  would  not  prove  that  the 
Africans  possessed  the  arts  of  engraving  or  manufacturing 
pottery,  but  it  would  prove  that  somewhere  on  the  earth's 
surface  a  race  had  advanced  far  enough,  at  that  time,  to 
be  capable  of  such  works  of  art.  And  so,  in  the  remains 
of  the  pre-glacial  age  of  Europe,  we  have  the  evidence 
that  some  of  these  people,  or  their  captives,  or  those  with 
whom  they  traded  or  fought,  had  gone  so  far  in  the  train- 
ing of  civilized  life  as  to  have  developed  a  sense  of  art 
and  a  capacity  to  represent  living  forms  in  pictures  or 
carvings,  with  a  considerable  degree  of  taste  and  skill. 
And  these  works  are  found  in  the  most  ancient  caves, 
"  the  archaic  caves,"  associated  with  the  bones  of  the  ani- 
mals that  ceased  to  exist  in  Europe  at  the  time  of  the 


350 


CONCLUSIONS. 


Drift  deposits.  Nay,  more,  a  picture  of  a  mammoth  has 
been  found  engraved  i(2)on  a  piece  of  mccmmoth-tusA: 
The  engraving  on  page  349  represents  this  most  curious 
work  of  art. 

The  man  who  carved  this  must  have  seen  the  creature 
it  represented  ;  and,  as  the  mammoth  did  not  survive  the 
Drift,  that  man  must  have  lived  before  or  during  the  Drift. 
And  he  was  no  savage.     Says  Sir  John  Lubbock  : 

"  No  representation,  however  rude,  of  any  animal  has 
yet  been  found  in  any  of  the  Danish  shell-mounds,  or  the 
Stone-Age  lake-villages.  Even  on  objects  of  the  Bronze 
Age  they  are  so  rare  that  it  is  doubtful  whether  a  single 
well-authenticated  instance  could  be  produced."  * 

In  the  Dordogne  eaves  the  following  spirited  drawing 
was  found,  representing  a  group  of  reindeer  : 


Pnz-GLACiAL  Ma^-'s  PicxrRE  OF  Eeixdeee. 

Here  it  Avould  appear  as  if  the  reindeer  were  fastened 
together  by  lines  or  reins  ;  if  so,  it  implies  that  they  were 

*  "  Prehistoric  Time?,"  p.  333. 


WAS  PRE-GLACIAL  MAN  CIVILIZED? 


351 


domesticated.  In  this  picture  they  seem  to  have  become 
entangled  in  their  lines,  and  some  have  fallen  to  the 
ground. 

And  it  does  not  follow  from  the  presence  of  the  rein- 
deer that  the  climate  was  Lapland-like.  The  ancestors 
of  all  our  so-called  Arctic  animals  must  have  lived  during 
the  mild  climate  of  the  Tertiary  Age  ;  and  those  only  sur- 
vived after  the  Drift,  in  the  nortb,  that  were  capable  of 
accommodating  themselves  to  the  cold  ;  the  rest  perished 
or  moved  southwardly. 

Another  grouj)  of  animals  was  found,  engraved  on  a 
piece  of  the  palm  of  a  reindeer's  horn,  as  follows  : 


Pee-glacial  Man's  Picture  of  the  Horse. 

Here  the  man  stands  alongside  the  horse's  head — a 
very  natural  position  if  the  horse  was  domesticated,  a 
very  improbable  one  if  he  was  not. 

Pieces  of  pottery  have  also  been  found  accompanying 
these  palaeolithic  remains  of  man. 

The  oldest  evidence  of  the  existence  of  man  is  prob- 
ably the  fragment  of  a  cut  rib  from  the  Pliocenes  of 
Tuscany,  preserved  in  the  museum  at  Florence  ;  it  was 
associated  with  flint-flakes  and  a  piece  of  rude  pot- 
tery.^ 

But  the  art-capacity  of  these  people  was  not  limited 
to  the  drawing  of  animals  ;  they  also  carved  figures  out 


*  Dawkias's  "Early  Man  in  Britain,"  p.  91. 


552 


COXCLUSIONS. 


of  bard  substances.     The  following  engraving  represents 
a  poniard  cut  from  a  reindeer's  horn. 


A  Specdien  of  Pke-glacial  Caeting. 

Sir  John  Lubbock  says  : 

"The  artist  has  ingeniously  adapted  the  position  of 
the  animal  to  the  necessities  of  the  case.  The  horns  are 
thrown  back  on  the  neck,  the  fore-legs  are  doubled  up 
under  the  belly,  and  the  hind-legs  are  stretched  out  along 
the  blade."  * 

These  things  seem  to  indicate  quite  an  advanced  con- 
dition ;  the  people  who  made  them  manufactured  pottery, 
possessed  domesticated  animals,  and  were  able  to  engrave 
and  carve  images  of  living  objects.  It  is  diflficult  to  be- 
lieve that  they  could  have  carved  and  engraved  these 
hard  substances  without  metallic  gravers  or  tools  of  some 
kind. 

The  reader  will  see,  on  page  130,  ante,  a  representation 
of  a  sienite  plummet  found  thirty  feet  heloio  the  surface, 
in  a  well,  in  the  San  Joaquin  Valley,  California,  which 
Professor  Foster  pronounces  to  be — 

"A  finer  exhibition  of  the  lapidary's  skill  than  has 
yet  been  furnished  by  the  Stone  Age  of  either  conti- 
nent." t 

*  "  Prehistoric  Times,"  p.  335. 

t  Foster's  "  Prehistoric  Races  of  the  United  States,"  p.  55. 


WAS  mE-GLACIAL  MAN  CIVILIZED? 


353 


The  following  picture  represents  a  curious  image 
carved  out  of  black  marble,  about  twice  as  large  as  the 
cut,  found  near  Marlboro,  Stark  County,  Ohio,  by  some 
Avorkmen,  while  digging  a  well,  at  a  depth  of  twelve  feet 
heloio  the  surface.  The  ground 
above  it  had  never  been  dis- 
turbed. It  was  imbedded  in  sand 
and  gravel.  The  black  or  varie- 
gated marble  out  of  which  this 
image  is  carved  has  not  been 
found  in  place  in  Ohio. 

T.  W.  Kinney,  of  Portsmouth, 
Ohio,  writes  as  follows  : 

"Last  summer,  while  digging 
a  vault  for  drainage,  at  the  depth 
of  twenty-seven  feet,  the  workmen 
found  the  tusk  of  a  mastodon. 
The  piece  was  about  four  feet 
long  and  four  inches  in  diameter 
at  the  thickest  part.  It  was  near- 
ly all  lost,  having  crumbled  very 
much  when  exposed  to  the  air. 
I  have  a  large  piece  of  it  ;  also 
several  flakes  of  flint  found  near 
the  same  depth. 

"  I  also  have  several  of  the 
flakes  from  other  vaults,  some  of 
which  show  evidence  of  work. 

"  We  also  found  a  log  at  the 
depth  of  twenty-tioo  feet.    The  log  was  hurned  at  one  end, 
and  at  the  other  end  was  a  gap,  the  same  as  an  axemayi's 
kerf.     Shell-banks  below  the  level  of  the  base  of  mound- 
builders'  works,  from  six  to  fifteen  feet."  * 

Was  this  burned  log,  thus  found  at  a  depth  of  twenty- 
two  feet,  a  relic  of  the  great  conflagration  ?     Was  that 


Stone  Image  found  in  Ohio. 


*  "American  Antiquarian,"  April,  1878,  p.  36. 


354  COXCLUSIOXS. 

axe-kerf  made  by  some  civilized  man  who  wielded  a 
bronze  or  iron  weapon  ? 

It  is  a  curious  fact  that  burned  logs  have,  in  repeated 
instances,  been  exhumed  from  great  depths  in  the  Drift 
clay. 

While  this  work  is  going  through  the  press,  an  article 
has  appeared  in  "  Harper's  Monthly  Magazine,"  (Septem- 
ber, 1882,  p.  609,)  entitled  '*  The  Mississippi  River  Prob- 
lem," written  by  David  A.  Curtis,  in  which  the  author  says : 

"  When  La  Salle  found  out  how  goodly  a  land  it  was, 
his  report  was  the  warrant  of  eviction  that  drove  out  the 
red  man  to  make  place  for  the  white,  as  the  mound- 
builders  had  made  place  for  the  Indian  in  what  we  call 
the  days  of  old.  Tet  it  must  have  been  only  yesterday 
that  the  mound-builders  wrought  in  the  valley,  for  in  the 
few  centuries  that  have  elapsed  since  then  the  surface  of 
the  ground  has  risen  only  a  few  feet — not  enough  to  bury 
their  works  out  of  sight.  How  long  ago,  then,  must  it  have 
been  that  the  race  lived  there  whose  pavements  and  cis- 
terns of  Roman  brick  now  lie  scvexty  feet  underground?'''' 

Mr.  Curtis  does  not  mean  that  the  bricks  found  in 
this  prehistoric  settlement  had  any  historical  connection 
with  Rome,  but  simply  that  they  resemble  Roman  bricks. 
These  remains,  I  learn,  were  discovered  in  the  vicinity  of 
Memphis,  Tennessee.  The  details  have  not  yet,  so  far  as 
I  am  aware,  been  published. 

Is  it  not  more  reasonable  to  suppose  that  civilized  man 
existed  on  the  American  Continent  thirty  thousand  years 
ago,  (the  age  fixed  by  geologists  for  the  coming  of  the 
Drift,)  a  comparatively  short  period  of  time,  and  that  his 
works  were  then  covered  by  the  T)v'iit-debris,  than  to  be- 
lieve that  a  race  of  human  beings,  far  enough  advanced  in 
civilization  to  manufacture  bricks,  and  build  pavements 
and  cisterns,  dwelt  in  the  Mississippi  Valley,  in  a  past  so 
inconceivably  remote  that  the  slow  increase  of  the  soil. 


WAS  FRE-GLACIAL  MAX  CIVILIZED?  355 

by  vegetable  decay,  has  covered  their  works  to  the  depth 
of  seventy  feet? 

I  come  now  to  the  most  singular  and  marvelous  reve- 
lation of  all : 

Professor  Alexander  Winchell,  in  an  interesting  and 
recent  work,*  says  : 

"  I  had  in  vaj  possession  for  some  time  a  copper  relic 
resembling  a  rude  coin,  which  was  taken  from  an  artesian 
boring  at  the  dej^th  of  one  hundred  and  fourteen,  feet,  at 
Lawn  Ridge,  Marshall  County,  Illinois. 

"  Mr.  "NV.  H.  Wilraot,  then  of  Lawn  Ridge,  furnished 
me,  in  a  letter  dated  December  4,  1871,  the  following 
statement  of  deposits  pierced  in  the  boring  : 

Soil 3  feet. 

Yellow  clay 17  " 

Blue  clay 44  " 

Dark  vegetable  matter 4  " 

Hard  purjolish  clay 18  " 

Bright-green  clay 8  " 

Mottled  clay 18  " 

Soil 2  " 

Depth  of  coin 114     " 

Yellow  clay 1     " 

Sand  and  clay. 
Water,  rising  60  feet. 

"  In  a  letter  of  the  27th  of  December,  written  from 
Chillicothe,  Illinois,  he  stated  that  the  bore  was  four 
inches  for  eighty  feet,  and  three  inches  for  the  remain- 
der of  the  depth.  But  before  one  hundred  feet  had  been 
reached  the  four-inch  portion  was  '  so  plastered  over  as 
to  be  itself  but  three  inches  in  diameter,'  and  hence  the 
'  coin '  could  not  have  come  from  any  depih  less  than 
eighty  feet. 

"  'Three  persons  saw  "the  coin"  at  the  same  instant, 
and  each  claims  it,'     This  so-called  coin  was  about  the 

*  "Sparks  from  a  Geologist's  Hammer,"  p.  170. 


356  CONCLUSIONS. 

thickness  and  size  of  a  silver  quarter  of  a  dollar,  and  was 
of  remarkably  uniform  thickness.  It  was  approximately 
round,  and  seemed  to  have  been  cut.  Its  two  faces  bore 
marks  as  shown  in  the  figure,  but  they  were  not  stamped 
as  with  a  die  nor  engraved.     Tliey  looked  as  if  etched 


Copper  Coin,  found  One  Hundred  and  Fourteen  Feet  Under 
GROUND,  IN  Illinois. 

with  acid.  The  character  of  the  marks  was  partly  unin- 
telligible. On  each  side,  however,  was  a  rude  outline  of 
a  human  figure.  One  of  these  held  in  one  hand  an  object 
resembling  a  child,  while  the  other  was  raised  as  if  in 
the  act  of  striking.  The  figure  wore  a  head-dress,  appar- 
ently made  of  quills.  Around  the  border  icere  imdeci- 
phtral>le  hieroglyphics.  The  figure  on  the  opposite  side 
extended  only  to  the  waist,  and  had  also  one  hand  up- 
raised. This  was  furnished  icith  long  tufts  like  tmde's 
ears.  Around  the  border  was  another  circle  of  hieroglyph- 
ics. On  this  side  also  was  a  rude  outline  of  a  quadru- 
ped. I  exhibited  this  relic  to  the  Geological- Section  of 
the  American  Association,  at  its  meeting  at  Buffalo  in 
1876.  The  general  impression  seemed  to  be  that  its  ori- 
gin could  not  date  from  the  epoch  of  the  stratum  in  which 
it  is  represented  to  have  been  found.  One  pei'son  thought 
he  could  detect  a  rude  representation  of  the  signs  of  the 
zodiac  around  the  border.  Another  fancied  he  could  dis- 
cover numerals,  and  even  dates.  No  one  could  even  offer 
any  explanation  of  the  objects  or  the  circumstances  of  its 
discovery.  The  figures  bear  a  close  resemblance  to  rude 
drawings  executed  on  birch-bark  and  rock  surfaces  by  the 
American  Indians.  J3ut  by  what  means  toere  they  etched  f 
And  by  what  means  was  the  uniform  thickness  of  the  cop- 
per produced? 


WAS  PRE-GLACIAL  MAX  CIVILIZED?  357 

"This  object  was  sent  by  the  owner  to  the  Smithso- 
nian Institution  for  examination,  and  Secretary  Henry 
referred  it  to  3Ir.  William  E.  Dubois,  who  presented  the 
result  of  his  investigation  to  the  American  Philosophical 
Society.  J/r.  Dubois  felt  sttre  that  the  object  had  passed 
through  a  rolling-mill,  and  he  thought  the  cut  edges  gave 
further  evidence  of  the  machine-shop.  '  All  things  con- 
sidered,' he  said,  '  I  can  not  regard  this  Illinois  piece  as 
ancient  nor  old  (observing  the  usual  distinction),  nor  yet 
recent ;  because  the  tooth  of  time  is  plainly  visible.'  He 
could  suggest  nothing  to  clear  up  the  mystery.  Professor 
J,  P.  Lesley  thought  it  might  be  an  astrological  amulet. 
He  detected  upon  it  the  signs  of  Pisces  and  Leo.  He  read 
the  date  1572.  He  said,  'The  piece  was  placed  there  as  a 
practical  joke.'  He  thought  it  might  be  Hispano-American 
or  French-American  in  origin.  The  suggestion  of  '  a  prac- 
tical joke '  is  itself  something  which  must  be  taken  as  a 
joke.  No  person  in  jiossession  of  this  interesting  object 
would  willingly  part  with  it ;  least  of  all  would  he  throw 
so  small  an  object  into  a  hole  where  not  one  chance  in  a 
thousand  existed  that  it  would  ever  be  seen  again  by  any 
person. 

"  If  this  object  does  not  date  from  the  age  of  the  stra- 
tum from  which  obtained,  it  can  only  be  a  relic  of  the 
sixteenth  or  seventeenth  century,  buried  beneath  the  allu- 
vium deposited  more  recently  by  the  Illinois  River.  The 
country  is  a  level  prairie,  and  'Peoria  Lake'  is  an  ex- 
pansion of  the  river  ten  miles  long  and  a  mile  and  a  half 
broad.  It  is  certainly  possible  that  in  such  a  region  deep 
alluvial  deposits  may  have  formed  since  the  visits  of  the 
French  in  the  latter  part  of  the  seventeenth  century.  But 
it  is  not  easy  to  admit  an  accumulation  of  one  hundred 
and  fourteen  or  one  hundred  and  tioenty-five  feet,  since 
such  a  depth  extends  too  much  below  the  surface  of  the 
river.  In  Whiteside  County,  fifty  miles  northwest  from 
Peoria  County,  about  1851,  according  to  Mr.  Moffat,  a 
large  copper  ring  ic  as  found  one  hundred  and  tic  enty  feet 
beneath  the  surface,  as  also  something  which  has  been 
compared  to  a  boat-hook.  Several  other  objects  have 
been  found  at  less  depths,  including  stone  pipes  and  ptot- 
tery,  and  a  spear-shaped  hatchet,  made  of  irox.    If  these 


358  COXCLUSIOKS. 

are  not  '  ancient,'  their  occurrence  at  depths  of  ten,  foi'ty, 
fifty,  and  one  hundred  and  twenty  feet  must  be  explained 
as  i  have  suggested  in  reference  to  the  •  coin.'  An  in- 
strument of  iron  is  a  strong  indication  of  the  civilized 
origin  of  all." 

This  is  indeed  an  extraordinary  revelation.  Here  we 
have  a  coj^per  medal,  very  much  like  a  coin,  inscribed 
with  alphabetical  or  hieroglyphical  signs,  which,  vrhen 
placed  under  the  microscope,  in  the  hands  of  a  skej)tical 
investigator,  satisfies  him  that  it  is  not  recent,  and  that  it 
passed  through  a  rolling-mill  and  was  cut  hy  a  machine. 

If  it  is  not  recent,  if  the  tooth  of  time  is  plainly  seen 
on  it,  it  is  not  a  modern  fraud  ;  if  it  is  not  a  modern 
fraud,  then  it  is  really  the  coin  of  some  pre-Columbian 
people.  The  Indians  possessed  no  currency  or  alphabet, 
so  that  it  dates  back  of  the  red-men.  Nothing  similar 
has  been  found  in  the  hundreds  of  American  mounds  that 
have  been  opened,  so  that  it  dates  back  of  the  mound- 
builders. 

It  comes  from  a  depth  of  not  less  than  eighty  feet  in 
glacial  clay,  therefore  it  is  profoundly  ancient. 

It  is  engraved  after  a  method  utterly  unknown  to  any 
civilized  nation  on  earth,  icithin  the  range  of  recorded 
history.     It  is  engraved  with  acid  ! 

It  belongs,  therefore,  to  a  civilization  unlike  any  we 
know  of.  If  it  had  been  derived  from  any  other  human 
civilization,  the  makers,  at  the  same  time  they  borrowed 
the  round,  metallic  form  of  the  coin,  would  have  bor- 
rowed also  the  mold  or  the  stamp.  But  they  did  not ; 
and  yet  they  possessed  a  rolling-mill  and  a  machine  to  cut 
out  the  coin. 

What  do  we  infer?  That  there  is  a  relationship  be- 
tween our  civilization  and  this,  but  it  is  a  relationship  in 
which  this  represents  the  parent  ;  and  the  round  metallic 


WAS  PRE-GLACIAL  MAN   CIVILIZED?  359 

coins  of  historical  antiquity  were  derived  from  it,  but 
without  the  art  of  engraving  by  the  use  of  acid. 

It  does  not  stand  alone,  but  at  great  depths  in  the 
same  clay  implements  of  copper  and  of  iro^st  are  found. 

What  does  all  this  indicate  ? 

That  far  below  the  present  level  of  the  State  of  Illi- 
nois, in  the  depths  of  the  glacial  clays,  about  one  hundred 
or  one  hundred  and  twenty  feet  below  the  present  surface 
of  the  land,  there  are  found  the  evidences  of  a  high  civil- 
ization. For  a  coin  with  an  inscription  upon  it  implies  a 
high  civilization : — it  implies  an  alphabet,  a  literature,  a 
government,  commercial  relations,  organized  society,  reg- 
ulated agriculture,  which  could  alone  sustain  all  these  ; 
and  some  implement  like  a  plow,  without  which  exten- 
sive agriculture  is  not  possible  ;  and  this  in  turn  implies 
domesticated  animals  to  draw  the  plow.  The  presence  of 
the  coin,  and  of  implements  of  copper  and  iron,  proves 
that  mankind  had  passed  far  beyond  the  Stone  Age.  And 
these  views  are  confirmed  by  the  pavements  and  cisterns 
of  brick  found  seventy  feet  below  the  surface  in  the 
lower  Mississippi  Valley. 

There  is  a  Pompeii,  a  Herculaneum,  somewhere,  under- 
neath central  and  northwestern  Illinois  or  Tennessee,  of 
the  most  marvelous  character  ;  not  of  Egypt,  Assyria,  or 
the  Roman  Empire,  things  of  yesterday,  but  belonging  to 
an  inconceivable  antiquity ;  to  pre-glacial  times  ;  to  a 
period  ages  before  the  flood  of  Noah  ; — a  civilization 
which  was  drowned  and  deluged  out  of  sight  under  the 
immeasurable  clay -flood  of  the  comet. 

Man  crawled  timidly  backward  into  the  history  of 
the  past  over  his  little  limit  of  six  thousand  years  ;  and 
at  the  farther  end  of  his  tether  he  found  the  perfect  civ- 
ilization of  early  Egypt.  He  rises  to  his  feet  and  looks 
still   backward,    and   the   vista   of   history   spreads   and 


3G0  CONCLUSIONS. 

spreads  to  antediluvian  times.  Here  at  last  he  thinks  he 
has  reached  the  beginning  of  things:  here  man  first  domes- 
ticated the  animals  ;  here  he  first  worked  in  copper  and 
iron  ;  here  he  possessed  for  the  first  time  an  alphabet,  a 
government,  commerce,  and  coinage.  And,  lo  !  from  the 
bottom  of  well-holes  in  Illinois,  one  hundred  and  fourteen 
feet  deep,  the  buckets  of  the  artesian- well  auger  bring  up 
copper  rings  and  iron  hatchets  and  engraved  coins — en- 
graved by  a  means  unknown  to  historical  mankind — and 
we  stand  face  to  face  with  a  civilization  so  old  that  man 
will  not  willingly  dare  to  put  it  into  figures. 

Here  we  are  in  the  presence  of  that  great,  but  possibly 
brutal  and  sensual  development  of  man's  powers,  "the 
sword-ages,  the  axe-ages,  the  murder-ages  of  the  Goths," 
of  which  God  cleared  the  earth  when  he  buried  the  masto- 
don under  the  Drift  for  ever. 

How  petty,  how  almost  insignificant,  how  school-boy- 
like are  our  historians,  with  their  little  rolls  of  parchment 
under  their  arms,  containing  their  lists  of  English,  Roman, 
Egyptian,  and  Assyrian  kings  and  queens,  in  the  presence 
of  such  stupendous  facts  as  these  ! 

Good  reader,  your  mind  shrinks  back  from  such  con- 
ceptions, of  course.  But  can  you  escape  the  facts  by 
shrinking  back  ?  Ai-e  they  not  there  ?  Are  they  not  all 
of  a  piece  —  Job,  Ovid,  Rama,  Ragnarok,  Genesis,  the 
Aztec  legends ;  the  engraved  ivory  tablets  of  the  caves, 
the  pottery,  the  carved  figures  of  pre-glacial  Europe  ;  the 
pottery-strata  of  Louisiana  under  the  Drift ;  the  copper 
and  iron  implements,  the  brick  pavements  and  cisterns, 
and  this  coin,  dragged  up  from  well-holes  in  Illinois? 

And  what  do  they  afiirm  ? 

That  this  catastrophe  was  indeed  the  fall  or  max. 

Think  what  a  fall ! 

From  comfort  to  misery  ;  from  plowed  fields  to  the 


WAS  PRE-OLACIAL  MAN  CIVILIZED?  361 

thistles  and  the  stones  ;  from  sunny  and  glorious  days  in 
a  stormless  land  to  the  awful  trials  of  the  Drift  Age  ;  the 
rains,  the  cold,  the  snow,  the  ice,  the  incessant  tempests, 
the  darkness,  the  poverty,  the  coats  of  hides,  the  cave-life, 
the  cannibalism,  the  Stone  Age, 

Here  was  a  fall  indeed. 

There  is  nothing  in  antiquity  that  has  not  a  meaning. 
The  very  fables  of  the  world's  childhood  should  be  sacred 
from  our  laughter. 

Our  theology,  even  where  science  has  most  ridiculed 
it,  is  based  on  a  great,  a  gigantic  truth.  Paradise,  the 
summer  land  of  fruits,  the  serpent,  the  fire  from  heaven, 
the  expulsion,  the  waving  swoi-d,  the  "  fall  of  man,"  the 
"  darkness  on  the  face  of  the  deep,"  the  age  of  toil  and 
sweat — all,  all,  are  literal  facts. 

And  could  we  but  penetrate  their  meaning,  the  trees 
of  life  and  knowledge  and  the  apples  of  paradise  proba- 
bly represent  likewise  great  and  important  facts  or  events 
in  the  history  of  our  race. 

And  with  what  slow  steps  did  mankind  struggle  up- 
ward !  In  some  favored  geographical  center  they  recov- 
ered the  arts  of  metallurgy,  the  domestication  of  animals, 
and  the  alphabet. 

"All  knowledge,"  says  the  Hindoo  Krishna,  "was 
originally  bestowed  on  mankind  by  God.  They  lost  it. 
They  recovered  it  as  a  recollection." 

The  poor  barbarian  Indians  of  America  possess  tra- 
ditions of  this  ancient  civilization,  traditions  in  forms  as 
rude  as  their  own  condition. 

It  was  represented  by  the  Great  Plare,  Manibozho,  or 
Nanaboshu. 

Do  we  not  find  his  typical  picture,  with  those  great 
mule-tufts,  (referred  to  by  Professor  Winchell,)  the  hare- 
like ears,  on  this  coin  of  Illinois  ? 
17 


362  CONCLUSIONS. 

Read  what  the  Indians  tell  of  this  great  being  : 

"  From  the  remotest  wilds  of  the  Northwest,"  says 
Dr.  Brinton,  "  to  the  coast  of  the  Atlantic,  from  the  south- 
ern boundaries  of  Carolina  to  the  cheerless  swamps  of  Hud- 
son's Bay,  the  Algonquins  were  never  tired  of  gathering 
around  the  winter  fire  and  repeating  the  story  of  Mani- 
bozho  or  Michabo,  the  Great  Hare.  With  entire  una- 
nimity their  various  branches,  the  Powhatans  of  Virginia, 
tlie  Lenni-Lenape  of  the  Delaware,  the  warlike  hordes  of 
New  England,  the  Ottawas  of  the  far  North,  and  the  West- 
ern tribes,  perhaps  without  exception,  spoke  of  this  '  chi- 
merical beast,'  as  one  of  the  old  missionaries  calls  it,  as 
their  common  ancestor.  The  totem  or  clan  which  bore 
his  name  was  looked  up  to  with  peculiar  i-espect.  .  .  , 

"  What  he  really  was  Ave  must  seek  in  the  accounts  of 
older  travelers,  in  the  invocations  of  the  jossaJceeds  or 
prophets,  and  in  the  part  assigned  to  him  in  the  solemn 
mysteries  of  religion.  In  these  we  find  him  portrayed  as 
the  patron  and  founder  of  the  Meda  worship,  the  inventor 
of  picture-writing,  the  father  and  guardian  of  their  nation, 
the  ruler  of  the  winds,  even  the  maker  and  preserver  of 
the  world  and  creator  of  the  sun  and  moon.  From  a  grain 
of  sand  brought  from  the  bottom  of  the  primeval  ocean, 
he  fashioned  the  habitable  land,  and  set  it  floating  on  the 
waters  till  it  grew  to  such  a  size  that  a  strong  young  wolf, 
running  constantly,  died  of  old  age  ere  he  reached  its  lim- 
its, .  .  .  He  was  the  founder  of  the  medicine-hunt.  .  .  . 
'\^Q,'\i\m's,^i  \N2^'s>  a  mighty  hunter  of  old.  .  .  .  Attentively 
watching  the  spider  spread  its  web  to  trap  unwary  flies, 
he  devised  the  art  of  knitting  nets  to  catch  fish.'''"^ 

This  is  a  barbarian's  recollection  of  a  great  primeval 
civilized  race  who  established  religion,  invented  nets,  and, 
as  the  other  legends  concerning  him  show,  first  made  the 
bow  and  arrow  and  worked  in  the  metals. 

There  is  every  reason  to  think  the  division  of  the  peo- 
ple into  several  classes,  or  families,  who  take  the  name  of 


*  "Myths  of  the  New  World,"  p.  175. 


]VAS  PRE-GLACIAL  MAN  CIVILIZED?  CG3 

some  animal  whose  picture  is  their  totem,  dates  back  to 
the  very  beginning  of  the  human  race.  The  animal  fa- 
bles, as  I  have  suggested,  grew  out  of  these  animal  totems; 
we  find  them  everywhere  among  the  American  tribes  ; 
and  in  some  cases  they  are  accompanied  by  mental  and 
physical  traits  which  may  be  supposed  to  indicate  that  they 
originated  in  primal  race  differences.  This  is  the  belief 
of  Warren,  the  native  historian  of  the  Ojibways.  I  am 
indebted  to  Hon.  H.  M.  Rice,  of  St.  Paul,  for  an  opportu- 
nity to  examine  his  valuable  manuscript  history  of  that 
tribe  of  Indians. 

The  great  totem  of  the  Algonquins  is  the  Hare  ;  he 
represents  a  ruling  class,  and  is  associated  with  recollec- 
tions of  this  Great  Hare,  this  demi-god,  this  man  or  race, 
who  taught  them  all  the  arts  of  life  with  which  they  are 
acquainted.  Then  there  is  a  turtle  totem,  associated  with 
myths  of  the  turtle  or  tortoise,  which  are  the  images  all 
over  the  world  of  an  island.* 

And  when  we  cross  the  Atlantic  we  find  f  that  the 
Arabs  are  divided  up  in  the  same  Avay  into  tribes  bearing 
animal  names. 

^' Asad,  lion;  'a  number  of  tribes.'  Airs,  wolf;  'a 
tribe  of  the  Ancar,  or  Defenders.'  Badau,  ibex  ;  '  a 
tribe  of  the  Kalb  and  others.'  ThcClaba,  she-fox  ;  '  a 
name  of  tribes.'  Garad,  locusts  ;  '  a  sub  -  tribe  of  the 
AzoL'  Thaicr,  bull ;  '  a  sub-tribe  of  Hamdan  and  of  Abel 
Manah.'  Gahah,  colt  of  an  ass  ;  '  a  sub-tribe  of  the 
Arabs.'     Ilidd' ,  \dte  ;  'a  sub-tribe  of  Murad.' 

"The  origin  of  all  names  is  referred,  in  the  genealogical 
system  of  the  Arabs,  to  an  ancestor  who  bore  the  tribal 
or  gentile  name.  Thus  the  Kalb  or  dog-tribe  consists  of 
the  Beni-Kalb — sons  of  Kalb  (the  dog),  Avho  is  in  turn 
son  of  Wabra  (the  female  rock-badger),  son  of  Tha'laba 

*  Tylor's  "  Early  History  of  Mankind." 

f  W.  J.  F.  Maclennan,  "Fortnightly  Review,"  18G9  and  ISYO. 


364  CONCLUSrOXS. 

(the  she-fox),  great-grandson  of  QuocTa'a,  grandson  of 
Saba',  the  Sheba  of  Scripture.  A  single  member  of  the 
tribe  is  Kalbi — a  Kalbite —  Caninus.'''' 

"The  same  names  which  appear  as  totem  tribes  reach 
through  Edom,  Midian,  and  Moab,  into  the  land  of  Ca- 
naan." * 

Among  the  Jews  there  was  the  stock  of  the  serpent, 
Nashon,  to  which  David  belonged  ;  and  there  is  no  doubt 
that  they  were  once  divided  into  totemic  families. 

And  in  all  this  we  see  another  proof  of  the  race-iden- 
tity of  the  peoples  on  the  opposite  sides  of  the  Atlantic. 

Permit  me  to  close  this  chapter  with  a  suggestion  : 

Is  there  not  energy  enough  among  the  archteologists 
of  the  United  States  to  make  a  thorough  examination  of 
some  part  of  the  deep  clay  deposits  of  Central  Illinois 
or  of  those  wonderful  remains  referred  to  by  Mr.  Cur- 
tis? 

If  one  came  and  proved  that  at  a  given  point  he  had 
found  indications  of  a  coal-bed  or  a  gold-mine,  he  would 
have  no  difficulty  in  obtaining  means  enough  to  dig  a 
shaft  and  excavate  acres.  Can  not  the  greed  for  infor- 
mation do  one  tenth  as  much  as  the  greed  for  profit  ? 

Who  can  tell  what  extraordinary  revelations  wait 
below  the  vast  mass  of  American  glacial  clay  ?  For  it 
must  be  remembered  that  the  articles  already  found  have 
been  discovered  in  the  narrow  holes  bored  or  dug  for 
wells.  IIow  small  is  the  area  laid  bare  by  such  punctures 
in  the  earth  compared  with  the  whole  area  of  the  country 
in  which  they  are  sunk  !  How  remarkable  that  anything 
should  have  been  found  under  such  circumstances  !  How 
probable,  therefore,  that  the  remains  of  man  are  numerous 
at  a  certain  depth  ! 

Where  a  coin  is  found  we  might  reasonably  expect  to 

*  W.  J.  F.  Maclennan,  "  Fortnightly  Review,"  1869  and  ISTO. 


WAS  PRE-GLACIAL  MAN  CIVILIZED?  365 

find  other  works  of  copper,  and  all  those  things  which 
would  aecomjDany  the  civilization  of  a  i^eople  working  in 
the  metals  and  using  a  currency, — such  as  cities,  houses, 
temples,  etc.  Of  course,  such  things  might  exist,  and  yet 
many  shafts  might  be  sunk  without  coming  upon  any  of 
them.     But  is  not  the  attempt  worth  making  ? 


366  COXCLUSIONS. 


CHAPTER  II. 

TEE  SCEXE  OE  MAJ'S  SURVIVAL. 

Let  us  pass  to  another  speculation  : 

The  reader  is  not  constrained  to  accept  my  conclu- 
sions. They  will,  I  trust,  provoke  further  discussion, 
which  may  tend  to  prove  or  disprove  them. 

But  I  think  I  can  see  that  many  of  these  legends  point 
to  an  island,  east  of  America  and  west  of  Europe,  that  is 
to  say  in  the  Atlantic  Ocean,  as  the  scene  where  man,  or 
at  least  our  own  portion  of  the  human  race,  including  the 
white,  yellow,  and  brown  races,  survived  the  great  cata- 
clysm and  renewed  the  civilization  of  the  jDre-glacial  age  ; 
and  that  from  this  center,  in  the  course  of  ages,  they 
spread  east  and  west,  until  they  reached  the  plains  of 
Asia  and  the  islands  of  the  Pacific. 

The  negro  race,  it  seems  probable,  may  have  separated 
from  our  own  stock  in  pre-glacial  times,  and  survived,  in 
fragments,  somewhere  in  the  land  of  torrid  heats,  probably 
in  some  region  on  which  the  Drift  did  not  fall. 

AYe  are  told  by  Ovid  that  it  was  the  tremendous  heat 
of  the  comet-age  that  baked  the  negro  black  ;  in  this  Ovid 
doubtless  spoke  the  opinion  of  antiquity.  "Whether  or 
not  that  period  of  almost  insufferable  temperature  pro- 
duced any  effect  upon  the  color  of  that  race  I  shall  not 
undertake  to  say  ;  nor  shall  I  dare  to  assert  that  the  white 
race  was  bleached  to  its  present  complexion  by  the  long 
absence  of  the  sun  during  the  Age  of  Darkness. 


THE  SCENE  OF  MAN'S  SURVIVAL.  367 

It  is  ti'ue  Professor  Hartt  tells  us  *  that  there  is  a 
marked  difference  in  the  complexion  of  the  Botocudo 
Indians  who  have  lived  in  the  forests  of  Brazil  and  those, 
of  the  same  trihe,  who  have  dwelt  on  its  open  prairies  ; 
and  that  those  who  have  resided  for  hundreds,  perhaps 
thousands,  of  years  in  the  dense  forests  of  that  tropical 
land  are  nearly  white  in  complexion.  If  this  be  the  case  in 
a  merely  leaf -covered  tract,  what  must  have  been  the  effect 
upon  a  race  dwelling  for  a  long  time  in  the  remote  north, 
in  the  midst  of  a  humid  atmosphere,  enveloped  in  constant 
clouds,  and  much  of  the  time  in  almost  total  darkness  ? 

There  is  no  doubt  that  here  and  then  were  developed 
the  rude,  i:)Owerf ul,  terrible  "  ice-giants  "  of  the  legends, 
out  of  whose  ferocity,  courage,  vigor,  and  irresistible 
energy  have  been  evolved  the  dominant  races  of  the 
west  of  Europe — the  land-grasping,  conquering,  colonizing 
races  ;  the  men  of  whom  it  w^as  said  by  a  Roman  poet,  in 
the  Viking  Age  :  "  The  sea  is  their  school  of  war  and  the 
storm  their  friend  ;  they  are  sea-wolves  that  jjrey  on  the 
pillage  of  the  world." 

They  are  now  taking  possession  of  the  globe. 

Great  races  are  the  weeded-out  survivors  of  great 
sufferings. 

What  are  the  proofs  of  my  proposition  that  man  sur- 
vived on  an  Atlantic  island  ? 

In  the  first  place  we  find  Job  referring  to  "  the  island 
of  the  innocent." 

In  chapter  xxii,  verse  29,  Eliphaz,  the  Temanite,  says  : 

"  When  men  are  cast  down,  then  thou  shalt  say,  There 
is  lifting  up  ;  and  he  shall  save  the  humble  person." 

Where  shall  he  save  him  ?  The  next  verse  (30)  seems 
to  tell : 

*  "  The  Geology  of  Brazil,"  p.  589. 


368  CONCLUSIONS. 

"He  shall  deliver  ^/ie  aWcmf?  o/^/^e  innocent:  zndiitis 
delivered  by  the  pureness  of  thine  [Job's]  hands." 

And,  as  I  have  shown,  in  Genesis  it  appears  that,  after 
the  Age  of  Darkness,  God  separated  the  floods  which 
overwhelmed  the  eartli  and  made  a  firmament,  a  place  of 
solidity,  a  refuge,  (chap,  i,  vs.  6,  7,)  "in  the  midst  of  the 
waters,"  A  firm  place  in  the  midst  of  the  waters  is  nec- 
essarily an  island. 

And  the  location  of  this  Eden  was  icestward  fro^n 
Europe,  for  we  read,  (chap,  iii,  v.  24)  : 

"  So  he  drove  out  the  man  ;  and  he  placed  at  the  east 
of  the  garden  of  Eden  cherubims,  and  a  flaming  sword 
which  turned  every  way,  to  keep  the  way  of  the  tree  of 
life." 

The  man  driven  out  of  the  Edenic  land  was,  there- 
fore, driven  eastward  of  Eden,  and  the  cherubims  in  the 
east  of  Eden  faced  him.  The  land  where  the  Jews 
dwelt  was  eastward  of  paradise  ;  in  other  words,  paradise 
vras  west  of  them. 

And,  again,  when  Cain  was  driven  out  he  too  moved 
easticard ;  he  "dwelt  in  the  land  of  Kod,  on  the  east  of 
Eden,"  (chap,  iv,  verse  16.)  There  was,  therefore,  a 
constant  movement  of  the  human  family  eastward.  The 
land  of  Nod  may  have  been  Od,  Ad,  Atlantis  ;  and  from 
Od  may  have  come  the  name  of  Odin,  the  king,  the  god 
of  Ragnarok. 

In  Ovid  "  the  earth  "  is  contradistinguished  from  the 
rest  of  the  globe.  It  is  an  island-land,  the  civilized  land, 
the  land  of  the  Tritons  or  water-deities,  of  Proteus, 
JEgeon,  Doris,  and  Atlas.     It  is,  in  my  view,  Atlantis. 

Ovid  says,  (book  ii,  fable  1,  "  The  Metamorphoses  ")  : 

"  The  sea  circling  around  the  encomjKissed  earth.  .  .  . 
The  earth  has  upon  it  men  and  cities,  and  woods  and  wild 
beasts,  and  rivers,  and  nymphs  and  other  deities  of  the 


THE  SCEN-E  OF  MAN'S  SURVIVAL.  369 

country."  On  this  land  is  "the  palace  of  the  sun,  raised 
high  on  stately  columns,  bright  with  radiant  gold,  and 
carbuncle  that  rivals  the  flames  ;  polished  ivory  crests  its 
highest  top,  and  double  folding  doors  shine  with  the 
brightness  of  silver." 

In  other  words,  the  legend  refers  to  the  island-home 
of  a  civilized  race,  over  which  was  a  palace  which  re- 
minds one  of  the  great  temple  of  Poseidon  in  Plato's 
story. 

The  Atlantic  was  sometimes  called  "the  sea  of  ivo- 
ry," in  allusion,  probably,  to  this  ivory-covered  temple  of 
Ovid.     Hence  Croly  sang  : 

"  Xow  on  her  hills  of  ivory 

Lie  giant-weed  and  ocean-slime, 
Hiding  from  man  and  angel's  eye 
The  land  of  crime." 

And,  again,  Ovid  says,  after  enumerating  the  different 
rivers  and  mountains  and  tracts  of  country  that  were  on 
fire  in  the  great  conflagration,  and  once  moi'e  distinguish- 
ing the  pre-eminent  earth  from  the  rest  of  the  world  : 

"  However,  tbe  genial  Earth,  as  she  teas  surrounded 
irithsea,simid  the  waters  of  the  main"  (the  ocean,)  "and 
the  springs  dried  up  on  every  side,  lifted  up  her  all-pro- 
ductive face  ^''  etc. 

She  cries  out  to  the  sovereign  of  the  gods  for  mercy. 
She  refers  to  the  burdens  of  the  crops  she  annually  bears  ; 
the  wounds  of  the  crooked  plow  and  the  harrow,  which 
she  voluntarily  endures  ;  and  she  calls  on  mighty  Jove  to 
put  an  end  to  the  conflagration.  And  he  does  so.  The 
rest  of  the  world  has  been  scarred  and  seared  with  the 
fire,  but  he  spares  and  saves  this  island-land,  this  agricult- 
ural, civilized  land,  this  land  of  the  Tritons  and  Atlas  ; 
this  "  island  of  the  innocent  "  of  Job. 

And  when  the  terrible  convulsion  was  over,  and  the 


370  CONCLUSIONS. 

rash  Phaeton  dead  and  buried,  Jove  repairs,  with  esi5eeial 
care,  "  his  own  Arcadia." 

It  must  not  be  forgotten  that  Phaeton  was  the  son  of 
Merops ;  and  Theopompus  tells  us  that  the  people  who 
inhabited  Atlantis  were  the  Meropes,  the  people  of  Merou. 
And  the  Greek  traditions  *  show  that  the  human  race 
issued  from  Upa-Meroii  y  and  the  EgyjDtians  claim  that 
their  ancestors  came  from  the  Island  of  Mero  ;  and  among 
the  Hindoos  the  land  of  the  gods  and  the  godlike  men 
was  Meru. 

And  here  it  is,  we  are  told,  where  in  deep  caves,  and 
from  the  seas,  receding  under  the  great  heat,  the  human 
race,  crying  out  for  mercy,  with  uplifted  and  blistered 
hands,  survived  the  cataclysm. 

And  Ovid  informs  us  that  this  land,  "  with  a  mighty 
trembling,  sank  down  a  little  "  in  the  ocean,  and  the 
Gothic  and  Briton  (Druid)  legends  tell  us  of  a  prolonga- 
tion of  Western  Europe  which  went  down  at  the  same 
time. 

In  the  Hindoo  legends  the  great  battle  between  Rama 
and  Havana,  the  sun  and  the  comet,  takes  j^lace  on  an 
island,  the  Island  of  Lanka,  and  Rama  builds  a  stone 
bridge  sixty  miles  long  to  reach  the  island. 

In  the  Norse  legends  Asgard  lies  to  the  west  of  Europe ; 
communication  is  maintained  with  it  by  the  bridge  Bi- 
frost.  Gylfe  goes  to  visit  Asgard,  as  Herodotus  and 
Solon  went  to  visit  Egypt  :  the  outside  barbarian  was 
curious  to  behold  the  great  civilized  land.  There  he  asks 
many  questions,  as  Herodotus  and  Solon  did.    He  is  told:  f 

"  The  earth  is  round,  and  xoitlioid  it  round  about  lies 
the  deep  ocean.'''' 

*  "Atlantis,"  p.  IVl. 

t  The  Fooling  of  Gylfe— The  Creation  of  the  World— The  Younger 
Edda. 


TH'E  SCENE   OF  MAN'S  SURVIVAL.  371 

The  earth  is  Ovid's  earth  ;  it  is  Asgard.  It  is  an 
island,  snrrounded  by  the  ocean  : 

"  And  along  the  outer  strand  of  that  sea  they  gave 
lands  for  the  giant-races  to  dwell  in  ;  and  against  the  at- 
tack of  restless  giants  they  built  a  burg  within  the  sea 
and  around  the  earth." 

This  proves  that  by  "  the  earth "  was  not  meant  the 
whole  globe  ;  for  here  we  see  that  around  the  outside 
margin  of  that  ocean  which  encircled  Asgard,  the  mother- 
country  had  given  lands  for  colonies  of  the  giant-races, 
the  white,  large,  blue-eyed  races  of  Northern  and  Western 
Europe,  who  were  as  "  restless  "  and  as  troublesome  then 
to  their  neighbors  as  they  are  now  and  will  be  to  the  end 
of  time. 

And  as  the  Elder  and  Younger  Edda  claim  that  the 
Northmen  were  the  giant  races,  and  that  their  kings  were 
of  the  blood  of  these  Asas  ;  and  as  the  bronze-using  peo- 
ple advanced,  (it  has  been  proved  by  their  remains,*)  into 
Scandinavia  from  the  southwest,  it  is  clear  that  these 
legends  do  not  refer  to  some  mythical  island  in  the  Indian 
Seas,  or  to  the  Pacific  Ocean,  but  to  the  Atlantic  :  the 
west  coasts  of  Europe  w^ere  "  the  outer  strand "  where 
these  white  colonies  were  established  ;  the  island  was  in 
the  Atlantic  ;  and,  as  there  is  no  body  of  submerged  land 
in  that  ocean  with  roots  or  ridges  reaching  out  to  the  con- 
tinents east  and  west,  except  the  mass  of  which  the  Azores 
Islands  constitute  the  mountain-tops,  the  conclusion  is 
irresistible  that  here  was  Atlantis  ;  here  was  Lanka  ;  here 
was  "  the  island  of  the  innocent,"  here  was  Asgard. 

And  the  Norse  legends  describe  this  "Asgard"  as  a  land 
of  temples  and  plowed  fields,  and  a  mighty  civilized  race. 

And  here  it  is  that  Ragnarok  comes.     It  is  from  the 

*  Du  Chaillu's  "  Land  of  the  Midnight  Sun,"  vol.  i,  pp.  343,  345,  etc. 


372  CONCLUSIONS. 

people  of  Asgard  that  the  wandering  Gylfe  learns  all  that 
he  tells  about  Ragnarok,  just  as  Solon  learned  from  the 
priests  of  Sais  the  story  of  Atlantis.  And  it  is  here  in 
Asgard  that,  as  we  have  seen,  "  during  Surt's  fire  two 
persons,  called  Lif  and  Lifthraser,  a  man  and  a  woman, 
concealed  themselves  in  Hodmimer's  holt,"  and  after- 
ward repeopled  the  world. 

We  leave  Europe  and  turn  to  India. 

In  the  Bagaveda-Gita  Krishna  recalls  to  the  memory 
of  his  disciple  Ardjouna  the  legend  as  preserved  in  the 
sacred  books  of  the  Veda. 

We  are  told  : 

"  The  earth  was  covered  with  flowers  ;  the  trees  bent 
under  their  fruit  ;  thousands  of  animals  sported  over  the 
plains  and  in  the  air  ;  white  elephants  roved  unmolested 
under  the  shade  of  gigantic  forests,  and  Brahma  perceived 
that  the  time  had  come  for  the  creation  of  man  to  inhabit 
this  dwelling-place."  * 

This  is  a  description  of  the  glorious  wox'ld  of  the  Ter- 
tiary Age,  during  which,  as  scientific  researches  have 
proved,  the  climate  of  the  tropics  extended  to  the  Arctic 
Circle. 

Brahma  makes  man,  Adima,  (Adam,)  and  he  makes 
a  companion  for  him,  Heva,  (Eve). 

Tliey  are  upon  an  island.  Tradition  localizes  the  le- 
gend by  making  this  the  Island  of  Ceylon. 

"  Adima  and  Heva  lived  for  some  time  in  perfect  hap- 
piness— no  suffering  came  to  distui'b  their  quietude  ;  they 
had  but  to  stretch  forth  their  hands  and  pluck  from  sur- 
roimding  trees  the  most  delicious  fruits — but  to  stoop  and 
gather  rice  of  the  finest  quality." 

This  is  tbe  same  Golden  Age  represented  in  Genesis, 
when  Adam  and  Eve,  naked,  but  supremely  happy,  lived 

*  Jacolliet,  "  The  Bible  in  India,"  p.  195. 


THE  SCENE  OF  MAN'S  SURVIVAL.  373 

upon  the  fruits  of  the  garden,  and  knew  neither  sorrow 
nor  suffering,  neither  toil  nor  hunger. 

But  one  day  the  evil-one  came,  as  in  the  Bible  legend  ; 
the  Prince  of  the  Kakchasos  (Raknaros — Ragnarok  ?) 
came,  and  broke  up  this  paradise.  Adima  and  Heva 
leave  their  island ;  they  pass  to  a  boundless  country  ; 
they  fall  upon  an  evil  time  ;  "  trees,  flowers,  fruits,  birds, 
vanish  in  an  instant,  amid  terrific  clamor "  ;  *  the  Drift 
has  come  ;  they  are  in  a  world  of  trouble,  sorrow,  poverty, 
and  toil. 

And  when  we  turn  to  America  we  find  the  legends 
looking,  not  westwai'd,  but  eastward,  to  this  same  island- 
refuge  of  the  I'ace. 

When  the  Navajos  come  out  of  the  cave  the  white 
race  goes  east,  and  the  red-men  go  icest ;  so  that  the 
Navajos  inhabit  a  country  ^cest  of  their  original  habitat, 
just  as  the  Jews  inhabit  one  east  of  it. 

"  Let  me  conclude,"  says  the  legend,  "  by  telling  how 
the  Navajos  came  b}^  the  seed  they  now  cultivate.  All 
the  wise  men  being  one  day  assembled,  a  Turkey-Hen 
came  flying  ^/)"0??i  the  direction  of  the  morning  star,  ^ndi 
shook  from  her  feathers  an  ear  of  blue  corn  into  the  midst 
of  the  company  ;  and  in  subsequent  visits  hrovght  all  the 
other  seeds  they  i^ossessy  f 

In  the  Peruvian  legends  the  civilizers  of  the  race  came 
from  the  east,  after  the  cave-life. 

So  that  these  people  not  only  came  from  the  east,  but 
they  maintained  intercourse  for  some  time  afterward  with 
the  parent-land. 

On  page  174,  ante,  we  learn  that  the  Iroquois  believed 
that  when  Joskeha  renewed  the  world,  after  the  great 
battle  with  Darkness,  he  learned  from  the  great  tortoise 

*  Jacolliet,  "The  Bible  in  India,"  p.  198. 
f  Bancroft's  "  Native  Races,"  vol.  iii,  p.  83. 


374  C  OXCL  USIOXS. 

— always  the  image  of  an  island — how  to  make  fire,  and 
taught  the  Indians  the  art.  And  in  their  legends  the 
battle  between  the  White  One  and  the  Dark  One  took 
place  in  the  east  near  the  great  ocean. 

Dr.  Brinton  says,  speaking  of  the  Great  Hare,  Mani- 
bozho  : 

"  In  the  oldest  accounts  of  the  missionaries  he  was  al- 
leged to  reside  toioard  the  east,  and  in  the  holy  formula 
of  the  meda  craft,  when  the  winds  are  invoked  to  the  med- 
icine-lodge, the  east  is  summoned  in  his  name,  the  door 
opens  in  that  direction,  and  there  at  the  edge  of  the  earth, 
w^here  the  sun  rises,  on  the  shore  of  the  infinite  ocean  that 
surrounds  the  land,  he  has  his  house,  and  sends  the  lumi- 
naries forth  on  their  daily  journey."  * 

That  is  to  say,  in  the  east,  in  the  surrounding  ocean  of 
the  east,  to  wit,  in  the  Atlantic,  this  god,  (or  godlike  race,) 
has  his  house,  his  habitation,  upon  a  land  surrounded  by 
the  ocean,  to  wit,  an  island  ;  and  there  his  power  and  his 
civilization  are  so  great  that  he  controls  the  movements 
of  the  sun,  moon,  and  stars  ;  that  is  to  say,  he  fixes  the 
measure  of  time  by  the  movements  of  the  sun  and  moon, 
and  he  has  mapped  out  the  heavenly  bodies  into  constel- 
lations. 

In  the  Miztec  legend,  (see  page  214,  ante,)  we  find  the 
people  praying  to  God  to  gather  the  waters  together  and 
enlarge  the  land,  for  they  have  only  "a  little  garden"  to 
inhabit  in  the  waste  of  waters.     This  meant  an  island. 

In  the  Arabian  legends  we  have  the  scene  of  the  catas- 
trophe described  as  an  island  west  of  Arabia,  and  it  re- 
quires tico  years  and  a  half  of  travel  to  reach  it.  It  is 
the  land  of  bronze. 

In  the  Hindoo  legend  of  the  battle  between  Rama,  the 

*  Brinton's  "  IMyths  of  the  Xcw  World,"  p.  177. 


THE  SCEXE  OF  MAX'S  SURVIVAL.  375 

sun,  and  Ravana,  the  comet,  the  scene  is  laid  on  the  Island 
of  Lanka. 

In  the  Tahoe  legend  the  survivors  of  the  civilized  race 
take  refuge  in  a  cave,  in  a  mountain  on  an  island.  They 
give  the  tradition  a  local  habitation  in  Lake  Tahoe. 

The  Tacullies  say  God  first  created  an  island. 

In  short,  we  may  say  that,  wherever  any  of  these  le- 
gends refer  to  the  locality  where  the  disaster  came  and 
where  man  survived,  the  scene  is  placed  upon  an  island, 
in  the  ocean,  in  the  midst  of  the  waters  ;  and  this  island, 
wherever  the  points  of  the  compass  are  indicated,  lies  to 
the  west  of  Europe  and  to  the  east  of  America  :  it  is, 
therefore,  in  the  Atlantic  Ocean  ;  and  the  island,  we  shall 
see,  is  connected  with  these  continents  by  long  bridges  or 
ridges  of  land. 

This  island  was  Atlantis.  Ovid  says  it  was  the  land 
of  Neptune,  Poseidon.  It  is  Neptune  who  cries  out  for 
mercy.  And  it  is  associated  with  Atlas,  the  king  or  god 
of  Atlantis. 

Let  us  go  a  step  further  in  the  argument. 


376  C  ONCL  USIONS. 


CHAPTER    III. 

THE  BEIDGE. 

The  deep-sea  soundings,  made  of  late  years  in  the  At- 
lantic, reveal  the  fact  that  the  Azores  are  the  mountain- 
tops  of  a  colossal  mass  of  sunken  land  ;  and  that  from  this 
center  one  great  ridge  runs  southward  for  some  distance, 
and  then,  bifurcating,  sends  out  one  limb  to  the  shores  of 
Africa,  and  another  to  the  shores  of  South  America  ;  Avhile 
there  are  the  evidences  that  a  third  great  ridge  formerly- 
reached  northward  from  the  Azores  to  the  British  Islands. 

When  these  ridges — really  the  tops  of  long  and  con- 
tinuous mountain-chains,  like  the  Andes  or  the  Rocky 
Mountains,  the  backbone  of  a  vast  primeval  Atlantic-fill- 
ing, but,  even  then,  in  great  part,  sunken  continent,  were 
above  the  water,  they  furnished  a  wonderful  feature  in 
the  scenery  and  geography  of  the  world  ;  they  were  the 
pathways  over  which  the  migrations  of  races  extended  in 
the  ancient  days  ;  they  wound  for  thousands  of  miles,  ir- 
regular, rocky,  wave-washed,  through  the  great  ocean, 
here  expanding  into  islands,  there  reduced  to  a  narrow 
strip,  or  sinking  into  the  sea  ;  they  reached  from  a  central 
civilized  land — an  ancient,  long-settled  land,  the  land  of 
the  godlike  race — to  its  colonies,  or  connections,  north, 
south,  east,  and  west  ;  and  they  impressed  themselves 
vividly  on  the  imagination  and  the  traditions  of  mankind, 
leaving  their  image  even  in  the  religions  of  the  world 
unto  this  day. 

As,  in  process  of  time,  they  gradually  or  suddenly  set- 


THE  BRIDGE.  377 

tied  into  the  deep,  they  must  at  first  have  formed  long, 
continuous  strings  of  islands,  almost  touching  each  other, 
resembling  very  much  the  Aleutian  Archipelago,  or  the 
Bahama  group  ;  and  these  islands  continued  to  be  used, 
during  later  ages,  as  the  stepping-stones  for  migrations 
and  intercourse  between  the  old  and  the  new  worlds,  just 
as  the  discovery  of  the  Azores  helped  forward  the  dis- 
covery of  the  New  World  by  Columbus  ;  he  used  them, 
we  know,  as  a  halting-place  in  his  great  voyage. 

When  Job  speaks  of  "  the  island  of  the  innocent," 
which  was  spared  from  utter  destruction,  he  prefaces  it 
by  asking,  (chap,  xxii)  : 

"  1.5.  Hast  thou  marked  the  old  zcat/  which  wicked 
men  have  trodden  ? 

"  16.  Which  were  (was?)  cut  down  out  of  time,  wJiose 
foundation  was  overflown  vnth  a  floods 

And  in  chapter  xxviii,  verse  4,  we  have  what  may  be 
another  allusion  to  this  "  way,"  along  which  go  the  jDcople 
who  are  on  their  journey,  and  which  "  divideth  the  flood," 
and  on  which  some  are  escaping. 

The  Quiche  manuscript,  as  translated  by  the  Abbe 
Brasseur  de  Bourbourg,*  gives  an  account  of  the  migra- 
tion of  the  Quiche  race  to  America  from  some  eastern 
land  in  a  very  early  day,  in  "  the  day  of  darkness,"  ere 
the  sun  Avas,  in  the  so-called  glacial  age. 

When  they  moved  to  America  they  wandered  for  a 
long  time  through  forests  and  over  mountains,  and  "  they 
had  a  long  passage  to  make.,  through  the  sea,  along  the 
shingle  and  pif^l'l'les  and  drifted  sand^  And  this  long 
j)assage  was  through  the  sea  "  which  was  parted  for  their 
passage."  That  is,  the  sea  was  on  both  sides  of  this  long 
ridge  of  rocks  and  sand. 

*  Tylor's  "  Early  Mankind,"  p.  308. 


378  CONCLUSIOXS. 

The  abbe  adds  : 

"  But  it  is  not  clear  how  they  crossed  the  sea  ;  they 
passed  as  though  there  had  been  no  sea,  for  they  passed 
over  scattered  rocks,  and  these  rocks  were  rolled  on  the 
sands.  This  is  why  they  called  the  place  '  ranged  stones 
and  torn-iip  sands,'  the  name  which  they  gave  it  in  their 
passage  within  the  sea,  the  water  being  divided  when 
they  passed," 

They  probably  migrated  along  that  one  of  the  con- 
necting ridges  which,  the  sea-soundings  show  us,  stretched 
from  Atlantis  to  the  coast  of  South  America. 

We  have  seen  in  the  Hindoo  legends  that  when  Rama 
went  to  the  Island  of  Lanka  to  fight  the  demon  Ravana, 
he  built  a  bridge  of  stone,  sixty  miles  long,  with  the  help 
of  the  monkey- god,  in  order  to  reach  the  island. 

In  Ovid  we  read  of  the  "  settling  down  a  little  "  of 
the  island  on  which  the  drama  of  Phaeton  was  enacted. 

In  the  Xorse  legends  the  bridge  Bifrost  cuts  an  im- 
portant figure.  One  would  be  at  first  disposed  to  regard 
it  as  meaning,  (as  is  stated  in  what  are  probably  later 
interpolations,)  the  rainbow  ;  but  v^-e  see,  upon  looking 
closely,  that  it  represents  a  material  fact,  an  actual  struct- 
ure of  some  kind. 

Gylfe,  who  was,  we  are  told,  a  king  of  Sweden  in  the 
ancient  days,  visited  Asgard.  He  assumed  the  name  of 
Ganglere,  (the  walker  or  wanderer).  I  quote  from  the 
"  Yoimger  Edda,  The  Creation  "  .• 

"  Then  asked  Ganglere,  '  What  is  the  path  from  earth 
to  heaven  ? '  " 

The  earth  here  means,  I  take  it,  the  European  colo- 
nies which  surround  tbe  ocean,  which  in  turn  surrounds 
Asgard  ;  heaven  is  the  land  of  the  godlike  race,  Asgard. 
Ganglere  therefore  asks  what  is,  or  was,  in  the  mytholog- 
ical past,  tbe  pathway  from  Europe  to  the  Atlantic  island. 


THE  BRIDGE.  379 

"  Har  answered,  laughing,  '  Foolishly  do  you  now  ask. 
Have  you  not  been  told  that  the  gods  made  a  bridge  from 
earth  to  heaven,  which  is  called  Bifrost  ?  You  must  have 
seen  it.  It  may  be  that  you  call  it  the  rainbow.  It  has 
three  colors,  is  very  strong,  and  is  made  with  more  craft 
and  skill  than  other  structures.  Still,  however  strong  it 
is,  it  will  break  when  the  sons  of  Muspel  come  to  ride 
over  it,  and  then  they  will  have  to  swim  their  horses  over 
great  rivers  in  order  to  get  on.'  " 

Muspel  is  the  blazing  South,  the  land  of  fire,  of  the 
convulsions  that  accompanied  the  comet.  But  how  can 
Bifrost  mean  the  rainbow  ?  What  rivers  intersect  a  rain- 
bow? 

"  Then  eaid  Ganglere,  '  The  gods  did  not,  it  seems  to 
me,  build  that  bridge  honestly,  if  it  shall  be  able  to  break 
to  pieces,  since  they  could  have  done  so  if  they  had  de- 
sired.' Then  made  answer  Har  :  '  The  gods  are  worthy 
of  no  blame  for  this  structure.  Bifrost  is  indeed  a  good 
bridge,  but  there  is  nothing  in  the  world  that  is  able  to 
stand  when  the  sons  of  Muspel  come  to  the  fight.'  " 

Muspel  here  means,  I  repeat,  the  heat  of  the  South. 
Mere  heat  has  no  effect  on  rainbows.  They  are  the 
product  of  sunlight  and  falling  water,  and  are  often  most 
distinct  in  the  warmest  weather. 

But  we  see,  a  little  further  on,  that  this  bridge  Bifrost 
was  a  real  structure.  We  read  of  the  roots  of  the  ash- 
tree  Ygdrasil,  and  one  of  its  roots  reaches  to  the  fountain 
of  Urd  : 

"  Here  the  gods  have  their  doomstead.  The  Asas  ride 
hither  every  day  over  Bifrost,  which  is  also  called  Asa- 
bridge." 

And  these  three  mountain-chains  going  out  to  the  dif- 
ferent continents  were  the  three  roots  of  the  tree  Ygdra- 
sil, the  sacred  tree  of  the  mountain-top  j  and  it  is  to  this 
"  three-pronged  root   of   the   world-mountain "  that  the 


380  C02^WLUSI0NS. 

Plindoo  legends  refer,  (see  page  238,  ante)  :  on  its  top 
was  heaven,  Olympus  ;  below  it  was  hell,  where  the  Asu- 
ras,  the  comets,  dwelt  ;  and  between  was  Meru,  (Mero 
Merou,)  the  land  of  the  Meropes,  Atlantis. 

The  Asas  were  clearly  a  human  race  of  noble  and 
godlike  qualities.  The  j^roof  of  this  is  that  they  perished 
in  Ragnarok  ;  they  were  mortal.  They  rode  over  the 
bi'idge  every  day  going  from  heaven,  the  heavenly  land, 
to  the  earth,  Europe. 

We  read  on  : 

"  Kormt  and  Ormt, 
And  the  two  Kerlaugs  ; 
These  shall  Thor  wade 
Every  day, 

"When  he  goes  to  judge 
Kear  the  Ygdrasil  ash  ; 
Fo7'  the  Asa-bridge 
13urns  all  ablaze — 
The  holy  waters  roar."  * 

These  rivers,  Kormt  and  Ormt  and  the  two  Kerlaugs, 
were  probably  breaks  in  the  long  ridge,  where  it  had 
gradually  subsided  into  the  sea.  The  Asa-bridge  was, 
very  likely,  dotted  with  volcanoes,  as  the  islands  of  the 
Atlantic  are  to  this  day. 

"Then  answered  Ganglere,  'Does  fire  burn  over  Bi- 
frost  ? '  liar  answered  :  '  The  red  which  you  see  in  the 
rainbow  is  burning  tire.  The  frost-giants  and  the  mount- 
ain-giants would  go  xip  to  heaven  if  Bifrost  were  passable 
for  all  who  desired  to  go  there.  Many  fair  places  are  there 
in  heaven,  and  they  are  protected  by  a  divine  defense.' " 

We  have  just  seen  (p.  371,  ante)  that  the  home  of  the 
godlike  race,  the  Asas,  to  wit,  heaven,  Asgard,  was  sur- 
rounded by  the  ocean,  was  therefore  an  island  ;  and 
that  around  the  outer  margin  of  this  ocean,  the  Atlantic, 

*  Elder  Edda,  "  Grimner's  Lay,"  29. 


THE  BRIDGE.  381 

the  godlike  race  had  given  lands  for  the  ice-giants  to 
dwell  in.  And  now  we  read  that  this  Asa-bridge,  this 
Bifrost,  reached  from  earth  to  heaven,  to  wit,  across  this 
gulf  that  separated  the  island  from  the  colonies  of  the 
ice-giants.  And  now  we  learn  that,  if  this  bridge  were  not 
defended  by  a  divine  defense,  these  troublesome  ice-giants 
would  go  up  to  heaven  ;  that  is  to  say,  the  bold  Northmen 
would  march  across  it  from  Great  Britain  and  Ireland  to 
the  Azores,  to  wit,  to  Atlantis.  Surely  all  this  could  not 
apply  to  the  rainbow. 

But  we  read  a  little  further.  Har  is  reciting  to  Gang- 
lere  the  wonders  of  the  heavenly  land,  and  is  describing 
its  golden  jjalaces,  and  its  mixed  population  of  dark  and 
light  colored  races,  and  he  says  : 

"  Furthermore,  there  is  a  dwelling,  by  name  Himin- 
bjorg,  v:Mch  stands  at  the  end  of  heaven,  lohere  the  Bi- 
frost bridge  is  united  with  heaven^ 

And  then  we  read  of  Heiradal,  one  of  the  gods  who 
was  subsequently  killed  by  the  comet  : 

"  He  dwells  in  a  place  called  Himinbjorg,  near  Bifrost. 
He  is  the  ward,"  (warder,  guardian,)  "of  the  gods,  and 
sits  at  the  end  of  heaven,  cjuarding  the  bridge  against  the 
mountain -giants.  He  needs  less  sleep  than  a  bird  ;  sees 
an  hundred  miles  around  him,  and  as  well  by  night  as  by 
day.     His  teeth  are  of  goldy 

This  reads  something  like  a  barbarian's  recollection  of 
a  race  that  practiced  dentistry  and  used  telescopes.  We 
know  that  gold  filling  has  been  found  in  the  teeth  of  an- 
cient Egyptians  and  Peruvians,  and  that  telescopic  lenses 
were  found  in  the  ruins  of  Babylon. 

But  here  we  have  Bifrost,  a  bridge,  but  not  a  contin- 
uous structure,  interrupted  in  places  by  water,  reaching 
from  Europe  to  some  Atlantic  island.  And  the  island- 
people  regarded  it  very  much  as  some  of  the  English  look 


382  CONCLirSIOKS. 

upon  the  proposition  to  dig  a  tunnel  from  Dover  to  Calais, 
as  a  source  of  danger,  a  means  of  invasion,  a  threat ;  and 
at  the  end  of  the  island,  where  the  ridge  is  united  to  it, 
they  did  what  England  will  jirobably  do  at  the  end  of 
the  Dover  tunnel :  they  erected  fortifications  and  built  a 
castle,  and  in  it  they  put  a  ruler,  possibly  a  sub-king, 
Heimdal,  who  constantly,  from  a  high  lookout,  j^ossibly 
with  a  field-glass,  watches  the  coming  of  the  turbulent 
Goths,  or  Gauls,  or  Gael,  from  afar  off.  Doubtless  the 
white-headed  and  red-headed,  hungry,  breekless  savages 
had  the  same  propensity  to  invade  the  civilized,  wealthy 
land,  that  their  posterity  had  to  descend  on  degenerate 
Rome. 

The  word  Asas  is  not,  as  some  have  supiDOsed,  derived 
from  Asia.  Asia  is  derived  from  the  Asas.  The  word 
Asas  comes  from  a  Norse  word,  still  in  use  in  Norway, 
Aas,  meaning  a  ridge  of  high  land.^  Anderson  thinks 
there  is  some  connection  between  Aas,  the  high  ridge,  the 
mountain  elevation,  and  Atlas,  who  held  the  world  on  his 
shoulders. 

The  Asas,  then,  were  the  civilized  race  Avho  inhabited 
a  high,  precipitous  country,  the  meeting-point  of  a  num- 
ber of  ridges.  Atlas  was  the  king,  or  god,  of  Atlantis. 
In  the  old  time  all  kings  were  gods.  They  are  something 
more  than  men,  to  the  multitude,  even  yet. 

And  when  we  reach  "  Ragnarok  "  in  these  Gothic  le- 
gends, when  the  jaw  of  the  wolf  Fenris  reached  from 
the  earth  to  the  sun,  and  he  vomits  fire  and  poison,  and 
when  Surt,  and  all  the  forces  of  Muspel,  "  ride  over  Bi- 
frost,  it  breaks  to  pieces.''^  That  is  to  say,  in  this  last  great 
catastrophe  of  the  earth,  the  ridge  of  land  that  led  from 
the  British  Islands  to  Atlantis  goes  down  for  ever. 

*  "  The  Younger  Edda,"  Anderson,  note,  p.  226. 


THE  BRIDGE.  383 

And  in  Plato's  description  of  Atlantis,  as  received  by 
Solon  from  the  Egyptian  priests,  we  read  : 

"  There  was  an  island  "  (Atlantis)  "  situated  in  front  of 
the  straits  which  you  call  the  Columns  of  Hercules  ;  the 
island  was  larger  than  Libya  and  Asia  put  together,  and 
was  the  loay  to  other  islands,  and  from  the  islands  you 
might  pass  through  the  whole  of  the  opposite  continent,'''' 
(America,)  "  which  surrounds  the  true  ocean," 

Now  this  is  not  very  clear,  but  it  may  signify  that 
there  was  continuous  land  communication  between  Atlan- 
tis and  the  islands  of  the  half-submerged  ridge,  and  from 
the  islands  to  the  continent  of  America.  It  would  seem 
to  mean  more  than  a  passage-way  by  boats  over  the 
water,  for  that  existed  everywhere,  and  could  be  traversed 
in  any  direction. 

I  have  quoted  on  p.  372,  ante,  in  the  last  chapter,  part 
of  the  Sanskrit  legend  of  Adima  and  Heva,  as  preserved 
in  the  Bagaveda-Gita,  and  other  sacred  books  of  the 
Hindoos.  It  refers  very  distinctly  to  the  bridge  which 
united  the  island-home  of  primeval  humanity  with  the 
rest  of  the  earth.     But  there  is  more  of  it  : 

When,  under  the  inspiration  of  the  prince  of  demons, 
Adima  and  Heva  begin  to  wander,  and  desire  to  leave 
their  island,  we  read  : 

"  Arriving  at  last  at  the  extremity  of  the  island  " — 

We  have  seen  that  the  bridge  Bifrost  was  connected 
with  the  extremity  of  Asgard — 

"they  beheld  a  smooth  and  narrow  arm  of  the  sea, 
and  beyond  it  a  vast  and  apparently  boundless  country," 
(Europe  ?)  "  connected  with  their  island  by  a  narroio  and 
rocky  pathio ay,  arising  from  the  bosom  of  the  loaters.'^'' 

This  is  probably  a  precise  description  of  the  connect- 
ing ridge  ;  it  united  the  boundless  continent,  Europe,  with 


384  CONCLUSIONS. 

the  island  ;  it  rose  out  of  the  sea,  it  was  rocky  ;  it  was 
the  broken  crest  of  a  submerged  mountain-chain. 

What  became  of  it  ?  Here  again  we  have  a  tradition 
of  its  destruction,  "VVe  read  that,  after  Adima  and  Heva 
had  passed  over  this  rocky  bridge — 

"No  sooner  did  they  touch  the  shore,  than  trees, 
flowers,  fruit,  birds,  all  that  they  had  seen  from  the  op- 
posite side,  vanished  in  an  instant,  amidst  terrific  clamor  ^' 
the  rocks  by  lohich  they  had  crossed  sank  beneath  the 
leaves,  a  few  sharp  peaks  alone  remaining  above  the  sur- 
face, to  indicate  the  place  of  the  bridge,  which  had  been 
destroyed  by  divine  dlsj^leasure.'''' 

Here  we  have  the  crushing  and  instant  destruction  by 
the  Drift,  the  terrific  clamor  of  the  age  of  chaos,  and  the 
breaking  down  of  the  bridge  Bifrost  under  the  feet  of  the 
advancing  armies  of  Muspel  ;  here  we  have  "  the  earth  " 
of  Ovid  "  settling  down  a  little  "  in  the  ocean  ;  here  we 
have  the. legends  of  the  Cornishmen  of  the  lost  land,  de- 
scribed in  the  poetry  of  Tennyson  ;  here  we  have  the  emi- 
grants to  Europe  cut  off  from  their  primeval  home,  and 
left  in  a  land  of  stones  and  clay  and  thistles. 

It  is,  of  course,  localized  in  Ceylon,  precisely  as  the 
mountain  of  Ararat  and  the  mountain  of  Olympus  crop 
out  in  a  score  of  places,  wherever  the  races  carried  their 
legends.  And  to  this  day  the  Hindoo  points  to  the  rocks 
which  rise  in  the  Indian  Ocean,  between  the  eastern  point 
of  India  and  the  Island  of  Ceylon,  as  the  remnants  of  the 
Bridge  ;  and  the  reader  will  find  them  marked  on  our 
maps  as  "Adam's  Bridge"  [Palam  Adima).  The  people 
even  point  out,  to  this  day,  a  high  mountain,  from  whose 
foot  the  Bridge  went  forth,  over  which  Adima  and  Heva 
crossed  to  the  continent  ;  and  it  is  knoAvn  in  modern  ge- 
ography as  "  Adam's  Peak."  So  vividly  have  the  tradi- 
tions of  a  vast  antiquity  come  down  to  us  !     The  legends 


THE  BRIDGE.  385 

of  the  Drift  have  left  their  stamj?  even  in  our  school- 
books. 

And  the  memory  of  this  Bridge  survives  not  only  in 
our  geographies,  but  in  our  religions. 

Man  reasons,  at  first,  from  below  ujjward  ;  from  god- 
like men  up  to  man-like  gods  ;  from  Cassar,  the  soldier, 
up  to  Ctesar,  the  deity. 

Heaven  was,  in  the  beginning,  a  heavenly  city  on 
earth  ;  it  is  transported  to  the  clouds  ;  and  there  its  golden 
streets  and  sparkling  palaces  await  the  redeemed. 

This  is  natural :  we  can  only  conceive  of  the  best  of 
the  spiritual  by  the  best  we  know  of  the  material ;  we 
can  imagine  no  musical  instrument  in  the  hands  of  the 
angels  superior  to  a  harp  ;  no  weapon  better  than  a  sword 
for  the  grasp  of  Gabriel. 

This  disproves  not  a  spiritual  and  superior  state  ;  it 
simply  shows  the  poverty  and  paucity  of  our  poor  intel- 
lectual apparatus,  which,  like  a  mirror,  reflects  only  that 
which  is  around  it,  and  reflects  it  imjjerfectly. 

Men  sometimes  think  they  are  mocking  spiritual  things 
when  it  is  the  imperfection  of  material  nature,  (which 
they  set  so  much  store  by,)  that  provokes  their  ridi- 
cule. 

So,  among  all  the  races  which  went  out  from  this  heav- 
enly land,  this  land  of  high  intelligence,  this  land  of  the 
master  race,  it  was  remembered  down  through  the  ages, 
and  dwelt  upon  and  sung  of  until  it  moved  upward  from 
the  waters  of  the  Atlantic  to  the  distant  skies,  and  became 
a  spiritual  heaven.  And  the  ridges  which  so  strangely 
connected  it  with  the  continents,  east  and  west,  became 
the  bridges  over  which  the  souls  of  men  must  pass  to  go 
from  earth  to  heaven. 

For  instance  : 

The  Persians  believe  in  this  bridge  between  earth  and 
18 


386  CONCLUSIONS. 

paradise.     In  his  prayers  the  penitent  in  his    confession 
says  to  this  day  : 

"  I  am  wholly  without  doitbt  in  the  existence  of  the 
]Mazdaya9nian  faith  ;  in  the  coming  of  the  resurrection  of 
the  latter  body  ;  in  the  stepping  over  the  bridge  Chmvat  • 
as  well  as  in  the  continuance  of  paradise."  * 

The  bridge  and  the  laud  ai'e  both  indestructible. 

Over  the  midst  of  the  Moslem  hell  stretches  the  bridge 
Es-Sirat,  "  finer  than  a  hair  and  sharper  than  the  edge  of 
a  sword." 

In  the  Lyke-Wake  Dirge  of  the  English  north-coun- 
try, they  sang  of 

"  The  Brig  of  Dread 
Na  braider  than  a  thread." 

In  Borneo  the  passage  for  souls  to  heaven  is  across  a 
long  tree  ;  it  is  scarcely  practicable  to  any  except  those 
who  have  killed  a  man. 

In  Burmah,  among  the  Karens,  they  tie  strings  across 
the  rivers,  for  the  ghosts  of  the  dead  to  pass  over  to  their 
graves. 

In  Java,  a  bridge  leads  across  the  abyss  to  the  dwelling- 
place  of  the  gods ;  the  evil-doers  fall  into  the  depths  below. 

Among  the  Esquimaux  the  soul  crosses  an  awful  gulf 
over  a  stretched  rope,  until  it  reaches  the  abode  of  "  the 
great  female  evil  spirit  below  "  (beyond  ?)  "  the  sea." 

The  Ojibways  cross  to  paradise  on  a  great  snake, 
which  serves  as  a  bridge. 

The  Choctaw  bridge  is  a  slippei'y  pine-log. 

The  South  American  Manacicas  cross  on  a  vvooden 
bridge. 

Among  many  of  the  American  tribes,  the  Milkj^  Way 
is  the  bridge  to  the  other  world. 

*  Poor,  "Sanskrit  Literature,"  p.  151. 


THE  BRIDGE.  387 

The  Polynesians  have  no  bridge  ;  they  pass  the  chasm 
in  canoes. 

The  Yedic  Yama  of  the  Hindoos  crossed  the  rapid 
waters,  and  showed  the  way  to  our  Aryan  fathers. 

The  modern  Hindoo  hopes  to  get  through  by  holding 
on  to  the  cow's  tail  ! 

Even  the  African  tribes,  the  Guinea  negroes,  believe 
that  the  land  of  souls  can  only  be  reached  by  crossing  a 
river. 

Among  some  of  the  North  American  tribes  "  the  souls 
come  to  a  great  lake,"  (the  ocean,)  "  where  there  is  a  beau- 
tiful island,  toward  which  they  have  to  paddle  in  a  canoe 
of  white  stone.  On  the  way  there  arises  a  storm,  and  the 
w-icked  souls  are  wrecked,  and  the  heaps  of  their  bones 
are  to  be  seen  under  the  water,  but  the  good  reach  the 
happy  island.''^  * 

The  Slavs  believed  in  a  pathway  or  road  which  led  to 
the  other  world  ;  it  was  both  the  rainbow  (as  in  the  Gothic 
legends)  and  the  Milky  Way  ;  and,  since  the  joui'ney  was 
long,  they  put  boots  into  the  coffin,  (for  it  was  made  on 
foot,)  and  coins  to  pay  the  ferrying  across  a  wide  sea,  even 
as  the  Greeks  expected  to  be  carried  over  the  Styx  by 
Charon.  This  abode  of  the  dead,  at  the  end  of  this  long 
pathway,  was  an  island,  a  warm,  fertile  land,  called 
JBuijau.] 

In  their  effort  to  restore  the  dead  men  to  the  happy 
island -home,  the  heavenly  land,  beyond  the  water,  the 
Korsemen  actually  set  their  dead  heroes  afloat  in  boats 
on  the  open  ocean.  | 

Subsequently  they  raised  a  great  mound  over  boat, 
warrior,  horses,  weapons,  and  all.  These  boats  are  now 
being  dug  uj)  in  the  north  of  Europe  and  placed  in  the 

*  Tylor's  "  Early  Mankind,"  p.  362. 

f  Poor,  "Sanskrit  and  Kindred  Literatures,"  pp.  371,  372.       X  I^i'J- 


388  CONCLUSIONS. 

great  museums.  They  tell  a  marvelous  religious  and  his- 
torical story. 

I  think  the  unprejudiced  reader  will  agree  with  me 
that  these  legends  show  that  some  Atlantic  island  played 
an  important  part  in  the  very  beginning  of  human  history. 
It  was  the  great  land  of  the  world  before  the  Drift ;  it 
continued  to  be  the  great  land  of  the  world  between  the 
Drift  and  the  Deluge.  Here  man  fell ;  here  he  survived  ; 
here  he  renewed  the  race,  and  from  this  center  he  repoj^u- 
lated  the  world. 

We  see  also  that  this  island  was  connected  with  the 
continents  east  and  west  by  great  ridges  of  land. 

The  deep-sea  soundings  show  that  the  vast  bulk  of 
land,  of  which  the  Azores  are  the  outcroppings,  are  so 
connected  yet  with,  such  ridges,  although  their  crests  are 
below  the  sea-level  ;  and  we  know  of  no  other  island-mass 
of  the  Atlantic  that  is  so  united  with  the  continents  on 
both  sides  of  it. 

Is  not  the  conclusion  very  strong  that  Atlantis  was 
the  island-home  of  the  race,  in  whose  cave  Job  dwelt  ;  on 
whose  shores  Phaeton  fell  ;  on  whose  fields  Adam  lived  ; 
on  whose  plain  Sodom  and  Gomorrah  stood,  and  Odin  and 
Thor  and  Citli  died  ;  from  which  the  Quiches  and  the  Az- 
tecs wandered  to  America ;  the  center  of  all  the  races  ; 
the  root  of  all  the  mythologies  ? 


OBJECTIONS   COXSIDERED.  389 


CHAPTER  lY. 

OBJECTIONS  CONSIDERED. 

Let  me  consider,  briefly,  those  objections  to  my  the- 
ory which  have  probably  presented  themsevles  to  some 
of  my  readers. 

First,  it  may  be  said  : 

"  We  don't  understand  you.  You  argue  that  there 
could  not  have  been  such  an  ice-age  as  the  glacialists  af- 
firm, and  yet  you  speak  of  a  period  of  cold  and  ice  and 
snow." 

True  :  but  there  is  a  great  difference  between  such  a 
climate  as  that  of  Scotland,  damp  and  cold,  snowy  and 
blowy,  and  a  continental  ice-sheet,  a  mile  or  two  thick, 
reaching  from  John  o'  Groat's  House  to  the  Mediterra- 
nean. We  can  see  that  the  oranges  of  Spain  can  grow 
to-day  within  a  comparatively  short  distance  of  Edin- 
burgh ;  but  we  can  not  realize  that  any  tropical  or  semi- 
tropical  plant  could  have  survived  in  Africa  when  a  preci- 
pice of  ice,  five  thousand  feet  high,  frowned  on  the  coast 
of  Italy  ;  or  that  any  form  of  life  could  have  survived  on 
earth  when  the  equator  in  South  America  was  covered  with 
a  continental  ice-sheet  a  mile  in  thickness,  or  even  ten 
feet  in  thickness.  We  can  conceive  of  a  glacial  age  of 
snow-storms,  rains,  hail,  and  wind — a  terribly  trying  and 
disagreeable  climate  for  man  and  beast — but  we  can  not 
believe  that  the  whole  world  was  once  in  the  condition 
that  the  dead  waste  of  ice-covered  Greenland  is  in  now. 


390  CONCLUSIONS. 

Secondly,  it  may  be  said  : 

"  The  wliolc  world  is  no\y  agreed  that  ice  produced 
the  Drift ;  what  right,  then,  has  any  one  man  to  set  up  a 
different  theorj^  against  the  opinions  of  mankind '?  " 

One  man,  Mohammed  said,  with  God  on  his  side,  is  a 
majority  ;  and  one  man,  wuth  the  truth  on  his  side,  must 
become  a  majority. 

All  recognized  truths  once  rested,  solitary  and  alone, 
in  some  one  brain. 

Truth  is  born  an  acorn,  not  an  oak. 

The  Rev.  Sydney  Smith  once  said  that  there  was  a 
kind  of  men  into  whom  you  could  not  introduce  a  new 
idea  without  a  surgical  operation.  He  might  have  add- 
ed that,  when  you  had  once  forced  an  idea  into  the  head 
of  such  a  man,  you  could  not  deliver  him  of  it  without 
instruments. 

The  conservatism  of  unthinkingness  is  one  of  the  po- 
tential forces  of  the  world.  It  lies  athwart  the  progress 
of  mankind  like  a  colossal  mountain-chain,  chilling  the 
atmosphere  on  both  sides  of  it  for  a  thousand  miles.  The 
Hannibal  who  would  reach  the  eternal  city  of  Truth  on 
the  other  side  of  these  Alps  must  fight  his  way  over  ice 
and  hew  his  way  through  rocks. 

The  world  v/as  once  agreed  that  the  Drift  was  due  to 
the  Deluge.  It  abandoned  this  theory,  and  then  became 
equally  certain  that  it  came  from  icebergs.  This  theory 
was,  in  turn,  given  up,  and  mankind  were  then  positive 
that  glaciers  caused  the  Drift.  But  the  glaciers  were 
found  to  be  inadequate  for  the  emergency  ;  and  so  the 
continents  were  lifted  up  fifteen  hundred  feet,  and  the 
ice-sheets  were  introduced.  And  now  we  wait  to  hear 
that  the  immense  ice-masses  of  the  Himalayas  have  for- 
saken their  elevations  and  are  moving  bodily  over  the 
plains  of  India,  grinding  up  the  rocks  into  clay  and  gravel 


OBJECTIONS   CONSIDERED.  391 

as  they  go,  before  we  accept  a  theory  which  declares  that 
they  once  marched  over  the  land  in  this  fashion  from 
Hudson's  Bay  to  Caj^e  Horn,  from  Spitzbergen  to  Spain. 

The  universality  of  an  eri'or  proves  nothing,  except 
that  the  error  is  universal.  The  voice  of  the  people  is  only 
the  voice  of  God  in  the  last  analysis.  We  can  safely 
appeal  from  Caiaj^has  and  Pilate  to  Time. 

But,  says  another  : 

"  We  find  deep  grooves  or  striations  under  the  glaciers 
of  to-day  ;  therefore  the  glaciers  caused  the  grooves." 

But  we  find  striations  on  level  plains  far  remote  from 
mountains,  where  the  glaciers  could  not  have  been  ;  there- 
fore the  glaciers  did  not  cause  the  striations.  "  A  short 
horse  is  soon  ciiri'ied."  Superposition  is  not  paternity. 
A  porcelain  nest-egg  found  under  a  hen  is  no  proof  that 
the  hen  laid  it. 

But,  says  another  : 

"The  idea  of  a  comet  encountering  the  earth,  and 
covering  it  with  debris,  is  so  stupendous,  so  out  of  the 
usual  course  of  nature,  I  refuse  to  accept  it." 

Ah,  my  friend,  you  forget  that  those  Drift  deposits, 
hundreds  of  feet  in  thickness,  are  there.  They  are  out 
of  the  usual  course  of  nature.  It  is  admitted  that  they 
came  suddenly  from  some  source.  If  you  reject  my  the- 
ory, you  do  not  get  clear  of  the  phenomena.  The  facts 
are  a  good  deal  more  stupendous  than  the  theory.  Go  out 
and  look  at  the  first  Drift  deposit  ;  dig  into  it  a  hundred 
feet  or  more  ;  follow  it  for  a  few  hundred  miles  or  more  ; 
then  come  back,  and  scratch  your  head,  and  tell  me  where 
it  came  from  !  Calculate  how  many  cart-loads  there  are 
of  it,  then  multiply  this  by  the  area  of  your  own  continent, 
and  multiply  that  again  by  the  area  of  two  or  three  more 
continents,  and  then  again  tell  me  where  it  came  from  ! 


392  COXCLUSIOXS. 

Set  aside  my  theory  as  absurd,  and  how  much  rearer 
are  you  to  solving  the  problem  ?  If  neither  waves,  nor 
icebergs,  nor  glaciers,  nor  ice-sheets,  nor  comets,  pro- 
duced this  world-cloak  of  debris,  where  did  it  come  from  ? 

Remember  the  essential,  the  incontrovertible  elements 
of  the  problem  : 

1.  Great  heat. 

2.  A  sudden  catastrophe. 

3.  Great  evaporation  of  the  seas  and  waters. 

4.  Great  clouds. 

5.  An  age  of  floods  and  snows  and  ice  and  torrents. 

6.  The  human  legends. 

Find  a  theory  that  explains  and  embraces  all  these 
elements,  and  then,  and  not  until  then,  throw  mine  aside. 
Another  will  say  : 

"  But  in  one  place  you  give  us  legends  about  an  age 
of  dreadful  and  long-continued  heat,  as  in  the  Arabian 
tale,  where  no  rain  is  said  to  have  fallen  for  seven  years  ; 
and  in  another  place  you  tell  us  of  a  period  of  constant 
rains  and  snows  and  cold.  Are  not  these  statements  in- 
compatible ?  " 

Not  at  all.  This  is  a  big  globe  we  live  on  :  the  tropics 
are  warmer  than  the  poles.  Suppose  a  tremendous  heat 
to  be  added  to  our  natural  temperature  ;  it  would  neces- 
sarily make  it  hotter  on  the  equator  than  at  the  poles, 
although  it  would  be  warm  everywhere.  There  can  be 
no  clouds  without  condensation,  no  condensation  without 
some  degree  of  cooling.  Where  would  the  air  cool  first  ? 
Naturally  at  the  points  most  remote  from  the  equator, 
the  poles.  Hence,  while  the  sun  was  still  blazing  in  the 
uncovered  heavens  of  the  greater  part  of  the  earth,  small 
caps  of  cloud  would  form  at  the  north  and  south  poles, 
and  shied  their  moisture  in  gentle  rain.  As  the  heat 
brought  to  the  earth  by  the  comet  was  accidental  and 


OBJECTIONS  CONSIDERED.  393 

adventitious,  there  would  be  a  natural  tendency  to  return 
to  the  pre-comet  condition.  The  extraoi'dinary  evapora- 
tion would  of  itself  have  produced  refrigeration.  Hence 
the  cloud-caps  would  grow  and  advance  steadily  toward 
the  equator,  casting  down  continually  increasing  volumes 
of  rain.  Snow  would  begin  to  form  near  the  poles,  and 
it  too  would  advance.  We  would  finally  have,  down  to 
say  the  thirty-fifth  degree  of  north  and  south  latitude, 
vast  belts  of  rain  and  snow,  while  the  equator  would  still 
be  blazing  with  the  tropical  heat  which  would  hold  the 
condensation  back.  Here,  then,  we  would  have  precisely 
the  condition  of  things  described  in  the  "  Younger  Edda  " 
of  the  Northmen  : 

"Then  said  Jafnhar  :  'All  that  part  of  Ginungagap' 
(the  Atlantic)  'that  turns  toward  the  north  was  filled  lolth 
thick,  heavy  ice  and  rime,''  (snow,)  'and  everywhere  within 
were  drizzling  gusts  and  rain.  But  the  south  part  of 
Ginungagap  was  lighted  up  by  the  glowing  sjKirks  that 
flew  out  of  Muspelheim'  (Africa?).  Added  Thride  :  'As 
cold  and  all  things  grim  proceeded  from  Niflheim,  so  that 
which  bordered  on  Miispelheim  was  hot  and  bright,  and 
Ginungagap '  (the  Atlantic  near  Africa  ?)  '  was  as  warm 
and  mild  as  windless  air.'  " 

Another  may  say  : 

"  But  how  does  all  this  agree  with  your  theory  that 
the  progenitors  of  the  stock  from  which  the  white,  the 
yellow,  and  the  brown  races  were  difl^erentiated,  were 
saved  in  one  or  two  caverns  in  one  place  ?  How  did 
they  get  to  Africa,  Asia,  and  America  ?  " 

In  the  first  place,  it  is  no  essential  part  of  my  case 
that  man  survived  in  one  place  or  a  dozen  places  ;  it  can 
not,  in  either  event,  affect  the  question  of  the  origin  of 
the  Drift.  It  is  simply  an  opinion  of  my  own,  open  to 
modification  upon  fuller  information.  If,  for  instance, 
men  dwelt  in  Asia  at  that  time,  and  no  Drift  deposits 


394  CONCLUSIONS. 

fell  upon  Asia,  races  may  have  survived  there  ;  the  negro 
may  have  dwelt  in  India  at  that  time  ;  some  of  the  strange 
Hill-tribes  of  China  and  India  may  have  had  no  connec- 
tion "witli  Lif  and  Lifthraser. 

But  if  we  will  suppose  that  the  scene  of  man's  survival 
was  in  that  Atlantic  island,  Atlantis,  then  this  would  fol- 
low : 

The  remnant  of  mankind,  whether  they  were  a  single 
couple,  like  Lif  and  Lifthraser  ;  or  a  group  of  men  and 
women,  like  Job  and  his  companions  ;  or  a  numerous 
party,  like  that  referred  to  in  the  Navajo  and  Aztec 
legends,  in  any  event,  they  would  not  and  could  not  stay 
long  in  the  cave.  The  distribution  of  the  Drift  shows 
that  it  fell  within  twelve  hours  ;  but  there  were  probably 
several  days  thereafter  during  which  the  face  of  the  earth 
was  swept  by  horrible  cyclones,  born  of  the  dreadful  heat. 
As  soon,  however,  as  they  could  safely  do  so,  the  remnant 
of  the  people  must  have  left  the  cave  ;  the  limited  nature 
of  their  food-supplies  would  probably  drive  them  out. 
Once  outside,  their  condition  w^as  pitiable  indeed.  First, 
they  encountered  the  great  heat ;  the  cooling  of  the  at- 
mosphere had  not  yet  begun  ;  water  was  a  pressing  want. 
Hence  we  read  in  the  legends  of  Mimer's  well,  where  Odin 
pawned  his  eye  for  a  drink.  And  we  are  told,  in  an 
American  legend,  of  a  party  who  traveled  far  to  And  the 
life-giving  Avell,  and  found  the  possessor  sitting  over  it  to 
hide  it.  It  was  during  this  period  that  the  legends  origi- 
nated which  refer  to  the  capture  of  the  cows  and  their 
recovery  by  demi-gods,  Hercules  or  Rama. 

Then  the  race  began  to  wandei*.  The  world  w^as  a 
place  of  stones.  Hunger  drove  them  on.  Then  came  the 
clouds,  the  rains,  the  floods,  the  snows,  the  darkness  ;  and 
still  the  people  wandered.  The  receded  ocean  laid  bare 
the  great  ridges,  if  they  had  sunk  in  the  catastrophe, 


OBJECTIONS  COXSIDERED.  395 

and  the  race  gradually  spread  to  Europe,  Africa,  and 
America. 

"  But,"  says  one,  "  how  long  did  all  this  take  ?  " 

Who  shall  say?  It  may  have  been  days,  weeks, 
months,  years,  centuries.  The  Toltec  legends  say  that 
their  ancestors  wandered  for  more  than  a  hundred  years 
in  the  darkness. 

The  torrent-torn  face  of  the  earth  ;  the  vast  rearrange- 
ment of  the  Drift  materials  by  rivers,  compared  with 
which  our  own  rivers  are  rills  ;  the  vast  continental  re- 
gions which  were  evidently  flooded,  all  testify  to  an 
extraordinary  amount  of  moisture  first  raised  up  from  the 
seas  and  then  cast  down  on  the  lands.  Given  heat  enough 
to  raise  this  mass,  given  the  cold  caused  by  its  evapora- 
tion, given  the  time  necessary  for  the  great  battle  be- 
tween this  heat  and  this  condensation,  given  the  time  to 
restore  this  body  of  water  to  the  ocean,  not  once  but  many 
times, — for,  along  the  southern  border  of  the  floods,  where 
Muspelheim  and  Niflheim  met,  the  heat  must  have  sucked 
up  the  water  as  fast  almost  as  it  fell,  to  fall  again,  and 
again  to  be  lifted  up,  imtil  the  heat-area  was  driven  back 
and  water  fell,  at  last,  everywhere  on  the  earth's  face, 
and  the  extraordinary  evaporation  ceased, — this  was  a 
gigantic,  long-continued  battle. 

But  it  may  be  asked  : 

"  Suppose  further  study  should  disclose  the  fact  that 
the  Drift  is  found  in  Siberia  and  the  rest  of  Asia,  and 
over  all  the  world,  what  then  ?  " 

It  will  not  disprove  ray  theory.  It  Avill  simply  indi- 
cate that  the  debris  did  not,  as  I  have  supposed,  strike  the 
earth  instantaneously,  but  that  it  continued  to  fall  dur- 
ing twenty-four  hours.  If  the  comet  was  sjjlit  into  frag- 
ments, if  there  was  the  "  Midgard-Serpent "  as  well  as  the 


396  CONCLUSIONS. 

"  Fenris  Wolf "  and  "  the   dog  Garm,"  they  need   not 
necessarily  have  reached  the  earth  at  the  same  time. 
Another  says  : 

"You  supposed  in  your  book,  'Atlantis,'  that  the 
Glacial  Age  might  have  been  caused  by  the  ridges  radiat- 
ing from  Atlantis  shutting  off  the  Gulf  Stream  and  pre- 
venting the  heated  waters  of  the  tropics  from  reaching 
the  northern  shores  of  the  world." 

True  ;  and  I  have  no  doubt  that  these  ridges  did  play 
an  important  part  in  producing  climatic  changes,  subse- 
quent to  the  Drift  Age,  by  their  presence  or  absence,  their 
elevation  or  depression  ;  but  on  fuller  investigation  I  find 
that  they  are  inadequate  to  account  for  the  colossal  phe- 
nomena of  the  Drift  itself — the  presence  of  the  clay  and 
gravel,  the  great  heat  and  the  tremendous  downfall  of 
water. 

It  may  be  asked, 

"How  does  your  theory  account  for  the  removal  of 
great  blocks,  weighing  many  tons,  for  hundreds  of  miles 
from  their  original  site  ?  " 

The  answer  is  plain.  We  know  the  power  of  the 
ordinary  hurricanes  of  the  earth.  "  The  largest  trees  are 
uprooted,  or  have  their  trunks  snapped  in  two  ;  and  few 
if  any  of  the  most  massive  buildings  stand  uninjured."  * 
If  we  will  remember  the  excessive  heat  and  the  electrical 
derangements  that  must  have  accompanied  the  Drift  Age, 
we  can  realize  the  tremendous  winds  spoken  of  in  many 
of  the  legends.  We  have  but  to  multiply  the  hurricane 
of  the  West  Indies,  or  the  cyclone  of  the  Mississippi  Val- 
ley, a  hundred  or  a  thousand  fold,  and  we  shall  have 
power  enough  to  move  all  the  blocks  found  scattered  over 
the  face  of  the  Drift  deposits  or  mixed  with  its  material. 

*  Applctons'  "  American  CyclopEcdia,"  vol.  is,  p.  80. 


OBJECTIONS   CONSIDERED.  397 

Another  asks  : 

"  How  do  you  account  for  the  fact  that  this  Drift 
material  does  not  resemble  the  usual  aerolites,  which  are 
commonly  composed  of  iron,  and  unlike  the  stones  of 
the  earth"'?  " 

I  have  shown  that  aCTolites  have  fallen  that  did  not 
contain  any  iron,  and  that  could  not  be  distinguished 
from  the  material  native  to  the  earth.  And  it  must  be 
remembered  that,  while  the  shining  meteoroids  that  blaze 
in  periodical  showers  from  radiant  jDoints  in  the  sky  are 
associated  with  comets,  and  are  probably  lost  fragments 
of  comet-tails,  these  meteoroids  do  not  reach  the  earth, 
but  are  always  burned  out,  far  up  in  our  atmosphere,  by 
the  friction  produced  by  their  motion,  The  iron  aerolite 
is  of  different  origin.  It  may  be  a  product  of  space  itself, 
a  condensation  of  metallic  gases.  The  fact  that  it  reaches 
the  earth  without  being  consumed  would  seem  to  indicate 
that  it  belongs  at  a  lower  level  than  the  meteoric  showers, 
and  has,  consequently,  a  less  distance  to  fall  and  waste. 

And  these  views  are  confirmed  by  a  recent  writer,* 
who,  after  showing  that  the  meteoroids,  or  shooting-stars, 
are  very  different  from  meteorites  or  aerolites,  and  seldom 
or  never  reach  the  earth,  proceeds  to  account  for  the 
former.     He  says  : 

"Many  theories  have  been  advanced  in  the  past  to 
account  for  these  strange  bodies,  but  the  evidence  now 
accumulated  proves  beyond  reasonable  doubt  that  they 
are  near  relatives,  and  jn'obably  the  debris  of  comets. 

"  Tempel's  comet  is  now  known  to  be  traveling  in  the 
same  orbit  as  the  November  meteors,  and  is  near  the  head 
of  the  train,  and  it  appears,  in  like  manner,  that  the  sec- 
ond comet  of  1862  (Swift's  comet)  is  traveling  in  the  orbit 
of  the  August  meteors.  And  the  first  comet  of  1881  seems 
to  be  similarl)'  connected  with  the  April  meteors.  .  .  . 

*  Ward's  "  Science  Bulletin,"  E.  E.  II.,  1882,  p.  4 


398  CONCLUCIOXS. 

"  Although  few  scientific  men  now  question  a  relation- 
ship between  comets  and  the  ordinary  meteors,  there  are 
those,  and  among  them  some  of  our  ablest  men,  who  think 
that  the  large  meteors,  or  bolides,  and  aerolites,  may  be 
different  astronomically,  and  perhaps  physically,  from  the 
oi*dinary  shooting-stars,  and  in  the  past  some  contended 
that  they  originated  in  our  atmosphere  ;  others  that  they 
were  ejected  from  terrestrial  volcanoes.  .  .  .  And  at  the 
present  time  the  known  facts,  and  all  scientific  thought, 
seem  to  point  to  the  conclusion  that  the  difference  be- 
tween them  and  ordinary  shooting-stars  is  analogous  to 
that  between  rain  and  mist,  and,  in  addition  to  the  rea- 
sons already  given  for  connecting  them  with  comets,  may 
be  mentioned  the  fact  that  meteorites  bring  with  them 
carbonic  acid,  which  is  known  to  form  so  prominent  a 
part  of  comets'  tails  ;  and  if  fragments  of  meteoric  iron 
or  stone  be  heated  moderately  in  a  vacuum,  they  yield  up 
gases  consisting  of  oxygen,  carbon,  hydrogen,  and  nitro- 
gen, and  the  spectrum  of  these  gases  corresponds  to  the 
spectrum  of  a  comet's  coma  and  tail. 

"By  studying  their  microscopical  structure,  Mr.  Sorby 
'has  been  able  to  determine  that  the  material  was  at  one 
time  certainly  in  a  state  of  fusion  ;  and  that  the  most  re- 
mote condition  of  which  we  have  positive  evidence  was 
that  of  small,  detached,  melted  globules,  the  formation 
of  which  can  not  be  explained  in  a  satisfactory  manner, 
except  by  supposing  that  their  constituents  were  origi- 
nally in  the  state  of  vapor,  as  they  now  exist  in  the  atmos- 
phere of  the  sun  ;  and,  on  the  temperature  becoming 
lower,  condensed  into  these  "  ultimate  cosmical  particles." 
These  afterward  collected  into  larger  masses,  which  have 
been  variously  changed  by  subsequent  metamorphic  ac- 
tion, and  broken  up  by  rej)eated  mutual  impact,  and  often 
again  collected  together  and  solidified.  The  meteoric 
irons  are  probably  those  portions  of  the  metallic  constitu- 
ents which  were  separated  from  the  rest  by  fusion  when 
the  metamorphism  was  carried  to  that  extreme  point.' " 

But  if  it  be  true,  as  is  conceded,  that  all  the  planets 
and  comets  of  the  solar  system  were  out-throwings  from 
the  sun  itself,  then  all  must  be  as  much  of  one  quality  of 


0BJECTI0X8   COXSIDERED.  399 

material  as  half  a  dozen  suits  of  clothes  made  from  the 
same  bolt  of  cloth.  And  hence  our-brother-the- comet 
must  be  made  of  just  such  matter  as  our  earth  is  made  of. 
And  hence,  if  a  comet  did  strike  the  earth  and  deposited 
its  ground-uj)  and  triturated  material  upon  the  earth's  sur- 
face, we  should  find  nothing  different  in  that  material 
from  earth-substance  of  the  same  kind. 
But,  says  another  : 

"  If  the  Drift  fell  from  a  comet,  why  would  not  this 
clay-dust  and  these  pebbles  have  been  consumed  before 
reaching  the  earth  by  the  friction  of  our  atmosphere  just 
as  we  have  seen  the  meteoroids  consumed  ;  or,  if  not  en- 
tirely used  up,  why  would  these  pebbles  not  show  a  fused 
surface,  like  the  iron  aerolites  ?  " 

Here  is  the  difference  :  a  meteorite,  a  small  or  large 
stone,  is  detached,  isolated,  lone-wandering,  lost  in  space  ; 
it  comes  within  the  tremendous  attractive  power  of  our 
globe  ;  it  has  no  parental  attraction  to  restrain  it  ;  and  it 
rushes  headlong  with  lightning-like  rapidity  toward  the 
earth,  burning  itself  away  as  it  falls. 

But  suppose  two  heavenly  bodies,  each  with  its  own 
center  of  attraction,  each  holding  its  own  scattered  mate- 
rials in  place  by  its  own  force,  to  meet  each  other  ;  then 
there  is  no  more  probability  of  the  stones  and  dust  of  the 
comet  flying  to  the  earth,  than  there  is  of  the  stones  and 
dust  of  the  earth  flying  to  the  comet.  And  the  attractive 
power  of  the  comet,  great  enough  to  hold  its  gigantic 
mass  in  place  through  the  long  reaches  of  the  fields  of 
space,  and  even  close  up  to  the  burning  eye  of  the  awful 
sun  itself,  holds  its  dust  and  pebbles  and  bowlders  to- 
gether until  the  very  moment  of  impact  with  the  earth. 
In  short,  they,  the  dust  and  stones,  do  not  continue  to 
follow  the  comet,  because  the  earth  has  got  in  their 
way  and  arrested  them.     It  was  this  terrific  force  of  the 


400  COXCLUSIOXS. 

comet's  attraction,  repi'esented  in  a  fearful  rate  of  mo- 
tion, that  tore  and  pounded  and  scratched  and  furrowed 
our  poor  earth's  face,  as  shown  in  the  crushed  and  stri- 
ated rocks  under  the  Drift.  They  would  have  gone  clean 
through  the  earth  to  follow  the  comet,  if  it  had  been 
possible. 

If  we  can  suppose  the  actual  bulk  of  the  comet  to  have 
greatly  exceeded  the  bulk  of  the  earth,  then  the  superior 
attraction  of  the  comet  may  have  shocked  the  earth  out 
of  position.  It  has  already  been  suggested  that  the  incli- 
nation of  the  axis  of  the  earth  may  have  been  changed  at 
the  time  of  the  Drift ;  and  the  Esquimaux  have  a  legend 
that  the  earth  was,  at  that  time,  actually  shaken  out  of  its 
position.     But  upon  this  question  I  express  no  opinion. 

But  another  may  say  : 

"Your  theory  is  impossible;  these  dense  masses  of 
clay  and  gravel  could  not  have  fallen  from  a  comet,  be- 
cause the  tails  of  comets  are  composed  of  material  so  at- 
tenuated that  sometimes  the  stars  are  seen  through  them." 

Granted  :  but  remember  that  the  clay  did  not  come  to 
the  earth  as  clay,  but  as  a  finely  comminuted  powder  or 
dust ;  it  packed  into  clay  after  having  been  mixed  with 
water.  The  particles  of  this  dust  must  have  been  widely 
separated  while  in  the  comet's  tail  ;  if  they  had  not  been, 
instead  of  a  deposit  of  a  few  hundred  feet,  we  should  have 
had  one  of  hundreds  of  miles  in  thickness.  We  have  seen, 
(page  94,  ante,)  that  the  tail  of  one  comet  was  thirteen  mill- 
ion miles  broad  ;  if  the  particles  of  dust  composing  that  tail 
had  been  as  minute  as  those  of  claj -dust,  and  if  they  had 
been  separated  from  each  other  by  many  feet  in  distance, 
they  would  still  have  left  a  deposit  on  the  face  of  any  ob- 
ject passing  through  them  much  greater  than  the  Drift. 
To  illustrate  my  meaning  :  you  ride  on  a  summer  day  a 
hundred  miles  in  a  railroad-car,  seated  by  an  open  win- 


OBJECTIONS  CONSIDERED.  401 

dow.  There  is  no  dust  perceptible,  at  least  not  enough  to 
obscure  the  landscape  ;  yet  at  the  end  of  the  journey  you 
find  yourself  covered  with  a  very  evident  coating  of  dust. 
Now,  suppose  that,  instead  of  traveling  one  hundred  miles, 
your  ride  had  been  prolonged  a  million  miles,  or  thirteen 
million  miles  ;  and,  instead  of  the  atmosphere  being  per- 
fectly clear,  you  had  moved  through  a  cloud  of  dust,  not 
dense  enough  to  intercept  the  light  of  the  stars,  and  yet 
dense  enough  to  reflect  the  light  of  the  sun,  even  as  a 
smoke-wreath  reflects  it,  and  you  can  readily  see  that,  long 
before  you  reached  the  end  of  your  journey,  you  would 
be  buried  alive  under  hundreds  of  feet  of  dust.  To  creat- 
ures like  ourselves,  measuring  our  stature  by  feet  and 
inches,  a  Drift-deposit  three  hundred  feet  thick  is  an  im- 
mense affair,  even  as  a  deposit  a  foot  thick  would  be  to 
an  ant  ;  but,  measured  on  an  astronomical  scale,  with  the 
foot-rule  of  the  heavens,  and  the  Drift  is  no  more  than  a 
thin  coating  of  dust,  such  as  accumulates  on  a  traveler's 
coat.  Even  estimating  it  upon  the  scale  of  our  planet,  it 
is  a  mere  wrapping  of  tissue-paper  thickness.  In  short, 
it  must  be  remembered  that  we  are  an  infinitely  insignifi- 
cant breed  of  little  creatures,  to  whom  a  cosmical  dust- 
shower  is  a  cataclysm. 

And  that  which  is  true  of  the  clay-dust  is  true  of  the 
gravel.  At  a  million  miles'  distance  it,  too,  is  dust ;  it 
runs  in  lines  or  streaks,  widely  separated  ;  and  the  light 
shines  between  its  pai'ticles  as  it  does  through  the  leaves 
of  the  trees  : 

"  And  glimmering  through  the  groaning  trees 
Kirk  Alloway  seems  in  a  blaze  ; 
Through  every  bore  the  beams  are  glancing." 

But  another  says  : 

"  Why  do  you  think  the  finer  parts  of  the  material  of 
the  comet  are  carried  farthest  back  from  the  head  ?  " 


402  CONCLUSIONS. 

Because  the  attractive  power  lodged  in  the  nucleus 
acts  with  most  force  on  the  largest  masses  ;  even  as  the 
rock  is  not  so  likely  to  leave  the  earth  in  a  wind-storm  as 
the  dust ;  and  in  the  flight  of  the  comet  througli  space, 
at  the  rate  of  thi-ee  hundred  and  sixty-six  miles  per  sec- 
ond, its  lighter  substances  would  naturally  trail  farthest 
behind  it ;  for — 

"The  thing  that's  heavy  in  itself 
Upon  enforcement  flies  with  greatest  speed." 

And  it  would  seem  as  if  in  time  this  trailing  material 
of  the  comet  falls  so  far  behind  that  it  loses  its  grip,  and 
is  lost ;  hence  the  showers  of  nieteoroids. 

Another  says  : 

"  I  can  not  accept  your  theory  as  to  the  glacial  clays  ; 
they  were  certainly  deposited  in  water,  formed  like  silt, 
washed  down  from  the  adjacent  continents." 

I  answer  they  were  not,  because  : — 

1.  If  laid  down  in  water,  they  would  be  stratified  ;  but 
they  are  not. 

2.  If  laid  down  in  water,  they  would  be  full  of  the  fos- 
sils of  the  water,  fresh-water  shells,  sea-shells,  bones  of  fish, 
reptiles,  whales,  seals,  etc. ;  but  they  are  non-fossilif erous, 

3.  If  laid  down  in  water,  they  would  not  be  made  exclu- 
sively from  granite.  Where  are  the  continents  to  be  found 
w^hich  are  composed  of  granite  and  nothing  but  granite  ? 

4.  "Where  were  the  continents,  of  any  kind,  from 
which  these  washings  came  ?  They  must  have  reached 
from  pole  to  pole,  and  filled  the  whole  Atlantic  Ocean. 
And  how  could  the  washings  of  rivers  have  made  this 
uniform  sheet,  reaching  over  the  whole  length  and  half 
the  breadth  of  this  continent  ? 

5.  If  these  clays  were  made  from  land-washings,  how 
comes  it  that  in  some  places  they  are  red,  in  others  blue, 
in  others  yellow  ?     In  Western  Minnesota  you  penetrate 


OBJECTIONS  CONSIDERED.  403 

through  twenty  feet  of  yellow  clay  until  you  reach  a  thin 
layer  of  gravel,  about  an  inch  thick,  and  then  pass  at 
once,  without  any  gradual  transition,  into  a  bed  of  blue 
clay  fifty  feet  thick  ;  and  under  this,  again,  you  reach 
gravel.  What  separated  these  various  deposits  ?  The 
glacialists  answer  us  that  the  yellow  clay  was  deposited 
in  fresh  water,  and  the  blue  clay  in  salt  water,  and  hence 
the  difference  in  the  color.  But  how  did  the  water  chancre 
instantly  from  salt  to  fresh  ?  Why  was  there  no  interval 
of  brackish  water,  during  which  the  blue  and  yellow  clays 
would  have  gradually  shaded  into  each  other  ?  The  tran- 
sition from  the  yellow  clay  to  the  blue  is  as  immediate 
and  marked  as  if  you  were  to  lay  a  piece  of  yellow  cloth 
across  a  jjiece  of  blue  cloth.  You  can  not  take  the  salt 
out  of  a  vast  ocean,  big  enough  to  cover  half  a  continent, 
in  a  day,  a  month,  a  year,  or  a  century.  And  where  were 
the  bowl-like  ridges  of  land  that  inclosed  the  continent, 
and  kept  out  the  salt  water  during  the  ages  that  elapsed 
while  the  yellow  clay  was  being  laid  down  in  fresh  wa- 
ter ?  And,  above  all,  why  are  no  such  clays,  blue,  yellow, 
or  red,  now  being  formed  anywhere  on  earth,  under  sheet- 
ice,  glaciers,  icebergs,  or  anything  else  ?  And  how  about 
the  people  who  built  cisterns,  and  used  coins  and  iron  im- 
plements before  this  silt  was  accumulated  in  the  seas,  a 
million  years  ago,  for  it  must  have  taken  that  long  to 
create  these  vast  deposits  if  they  were  deposited  as  silt 
in  the  bottom  of  seas  and  lakes. 
It  may  be  asked  : 

"What  relation,  in  order  of  time,  do  you  suppose  the 
Drift  Age  to  hold  to  the  Deluge  of  Noah  and  Deucalion?" 

The  latter  was  infinitely  later.  The  geologists,  as  I 
have  shown,  suppose  the  Drift  to  have  come  upon  the 
earth — basing  their  calculations  upon  the  recession  of  the 


404  C  OXCL  USIOXS. 

Falls  of  Niagara — about  thirty  thousand  years  ago.  We 
have  seen  that  this  would  nearly  accord  with  the  time 
given  in  Job,  when  he  speaks  of  the  position  of  certain 
constellations.  The  Deluge  of  Noah  probably  occurred 
somewhere  from  eight  to  eleven  thousand  years  ago. 
Hence,  about  twenty  thousand  years  probably  intervened 
between  the  Drift  and  the  Deluge.  These  were  the  "  myr- 
iads of  years  "  referred  to  b}^  Plato,  during  which  man- 
kind dwelt  on  the  great  plain  of  Atlantis. 

And  this  order  of  events  agrees  with  all  the  legends. 

In  the  Bible  a  long  interval  elapsed  between  the  fall 
of  man,  or  his  expulsion  from  pai'adise,  and  the  Deluge 
of  Noah  ;  and  during  this  period  mankind  rose  to  civili- 
zation ;  became  workers  in  the  metals,  musicians,  and  the 
builders  of  cities. 

In  the  Egyptian  history,  as  preserved  by  Plato,  the 
Deluge  of  Deucalion,  which  many  things  prove  to  have 
been  identical  with  the  Deluge  of  Noah,  was  the  last  of 
a  series  of  great  catastrophes. 

In  the  Celtic  legends  the  great  Deluge  of  Ogyges  pre- 
ceded the  last  deluge. 

In  the  American  legends,  mankind  have  been  many 
times  destroyed,  and  as  often  renewed. 

But  it  may  be  asked  : 

"Are  you  right  in  supposing  that  man  first  rose  to 
civilization  in  a  great  Atlantic  island  ?  " 

We  can  conceive,  as  I  have  shown,  mankind  at  some 
central  point,  like  the  Atlantic  island,  building  up  anew, 
after  the  Drift  Age,  the  shattered  fragments  of  pre- 
glacial  civilization,  and  hence  becoming  to  the  post- 
glacial ancient  world  the  center  and  ajiparent  fountain  of 
all  cultivation.  But  in  view  of  the  curious  discoveries 
made,  as  I  have  shown,  in  the  glacial  clays  of  the  United 


OBJECTIONS   CONSIDERED.  405 

States,  further  investigations  may  prove  that  it  was  on 
the  North  American  Continent  civilization  was  first  born, 
and  that  it  was  thence  moved  eastward  over  the  bridge- 
like ridges  to  Atlantis. 

And  it  is,  in  this  connection,  remarkable  that  the  Bi- 
ble tells  us  (Genesis,  chap,  ii,  v.  8)  : 

"And  the  Lord  God  planted  a  garden  eastioard,  in 
Eden  y  and  there  he  put  the  man  that  he  had  formed." 

He  had  first  (v.  7)  "formed  man  of  the  dust  of  the 
ground,"  and  then  he  moves  him  easticard  to  Eden,  to 
the  garden. 

And,  as  I  have  shown,  when  the  fall  of  man  came, 
when  the  Drift  destroyed  the  lovely  Tertiary  conditions, 
man  was  again  moved  eastward ,'  he  was  driven  out  of 
Eden,  and  the  cherubims  guarded  the  eastern  extremity 
of  the  garden,  to  prevent  man's  return  from  (we  will  say) 
the  shores  of  Atlantis.  In  other  words,  the  present  habi- 
tat of  men  is,  as  I  have  shown,  according  to  the  Bible, 
east  of  their  former  dwelling-place. 

In  the  age  of  man's  declension  he  moved  eastward. 
In  the  age  of  his  redemption  he  moves  westward. 

Hence,  if  the  Bible  is  to  be  relied  on,  before  man 
reached  the  garden  of  Eden,  he  had  been  created  in  some 
region  icest  of  the  garden,  to  wit,  in  America  ;,  and  here 
he  may  have  first  developed  the  civilization  of  which  we 
find  traces  in  Illinois,  showing  a  metal-working  race  suffi- 
ciently advanced  to  have  an  alphabet  and  a  currency. 

But  in  all  this  we  do  not  touch  upon  the  question  of 
where  man  was  first  formed  by  God. 

The  original  birthplace  of  the  human  race  who  shall 
tell  ?  It  was  possibly  in  some  region  now  under  the 
ocean,  as  Professor  AVinchell  has  suggested  ;  thei-e  he 
was  evolved  during  the  mild,  equable,  gentle,  plentiful, 


406  CONCLUSIONS. 

garden-age  of  the  Tertiary  ;  in  the  midst  of  the  most 
favorable  conditions  for  increasing  the  vigor  of  life  and 
expanding  it  into  new  forms.  It  showed  its  influence  by- 
developing  mammalian  life  in  one  direction  into  the  mon- 
strous forms  of  the  mammoth  and  the  mastodon,  the 
climax  of  animal  growth  ;  and  in  the  other  direction  into 
the  more  mai'velous  expansion  of  mentality  found  in 
man. 

There  are  two  things  necessary  to  a  comprehension  of 
that  which  lies  around  us — development  and  design,  evo- 
lution and  purpose  ;  God's  way  and  God's  intent.  Neither 
alone  will  solve  the  problem.  These  are  the  two  limbs  of 
the  right  angle  which  meet  at  the  first  life-cell  found  on 
earth,  and  lead  out  until  w^e  find  man  at  one  extremity 
and  God  at  the  other. 

Why  should  the  religious  world  shrink  from  the  the- 
ory of  evolution  ?  To  know  the  path  by  which  God  has 
advanced  is  not  to  disparage  God. 

Could  all  this  orderly  nature  have  grown  up  out  of 
chance,  out  of  the  accidental  concatenation  of  atoms  ? 
As  Bacon  said  : 

"  I  would  rather  believe  all  the  fables  in  the  Talmud 
and  the  Koran  than  that  this  universal  frame  is  xoithout  a 
mind!'''' 

Wonderful  thought !  A  flash  of  light  through  the 
darkness. 

And  what  greater  guarantee  of  the  future  can  we  have 
than  evolution  ?  If  God  has  led  life  from  the  rudest 
beginnings,  whose  fossils  are  engraved,  (blurred  and  ob- 
scured,) on  the  many  pages  of  the  vast  geological  vol- 
ume, up  to  this  intellectual,  charitable,  merciful,  power- 
ful world  of  to-day,  who  can  doubt  that  the  same  hand 
will  guide  our  posterity  to  even  higher  levels  of  develop- 
ment? 


OBJECTIONS  CONSIDERED.  407 

If  our  thread  of  life  has  expanded  from  Cain  to  Christ, 
from  the  man  who  murders  to  him  who  submits  to  mur- 
der for  the  love  of  man,  who  can  doubt  that  the  Cain- 
like in  the  race  will  gradually  pass  away  and  the  Christ- 
like dominate  the  planet  ? 

Religion  and  science,  nature  and  spirit,  knowledge  of 
God's  "works  and  reverence  for  God,  are  brethren,  who 
should  stand  together  with  twined  arms,  singing  perpet- 
ual praises  to  that  vast  atmosphere,  ocean,  universe  of 
spirituality,  out  of  which  matter  has  been  born,  of  which 
matter  is  but  a  condensation  ;  that  illimitable,  incompre- 
hensible, awe-full  Something,  before  the  conception  of 
which  men  should  go  down  upon  the  very  knees  of  their 
hearts  in  adoration. 


408  CONCLUSIONS. 


CHAPTER  V. 

BIELA'S    COMET. 

Humboldt  says  : 

"  It  is  probable  that  the  vapor  of  the  tails  of  comets 
mingled  with  our  atmosphere  in  the  years  1819  and 
1828."  * 

There  is  reason  to  believe  that  the  present  generation 
has  passed  through  the  gaseous  prolongation  of  a  comet's 
tail,  and  that  hundreds  of  human  beings  lost  their  lives, 
somewhat  as  they  perished  in  the  Age  of  Fire  and  Gravel, 
burned  up  and  poisoned  by  its  exhalations. 

And,  although  this  catastrophe  was  upon  an  infinitely 
smaller  scale  than  that  of  the  old  time,  still  it  may  throw 
some  light  upon  the  great  cataclysm.  At  least  it  is  a 
curious  story,  with  some  marvelous  features  : 

On  the  27th  day  of  February,  1826,  (to  begin  as  M. 
Dumas  would  commence  one  of  his  novels,)  M.  Biela, 
an  Austrian  officer,  residing  at  Josephstadt,  in  Bohemia, 
discovered  a  comet  in  the  constellation  Aries,  which, 
at  that  time,  was  seen  as  a  small  round  speck  of  filmy 
cloud.  Its  course  was  watched  during  the  following 
month  by  M.  Gambart  at  Marseilles  and  by  M.  Clausen 
at  Altona,  and  those  observers  assigned  to  it  an  elliptical 
orbit,  with  a  period  of  six  years  and  three  quarters  for  its 
revolution. 

M.  Daraoiseau  subsequently  calculated  its  path,  and 
announced  that  on  its  next  return  the  comet  would  cross 

*  "  Cosmos,"  vol.  i,  p.  100. 


BIELA'8  COMET. 


409 


the  orbit  of  the  earth,  within  ticenty  thousand  miles  of  its 
track,  and  but  about  one  month  before  the  earth  would 
hace  arrived  at  the  same  spot  / 

This  was  shooting  close  to  the  bull's-eye  ! 

He  estimated  that  it  would  lose  nearly  ten  days  on  its 
return  trip,  through  the  retarding  influence  of  Jupiter  and 
Saturn ;  but,  if  it  lost  forty  days  instead  of  ten,  what  then  ? 

But  the  comet  came  up  to  time  in  1832,  and  the  earth 
missed  it  hy  one  77ionth. 

And  it  returned  in  like  fashion  in  1839  and  1846.  But 
here  a  surprising  thing  occurred.  Its  proximity  to  the 
earth  had  split  it  in  tioo  /  each  half  had  a  head  and  tail 
of  its  own  ;  each  had  set  up  a  separate  government  for 
itself  ;  and  they  were  whirling  through  space,  side  by 
side,  like  a  couple  of  race-horses,  about  sixteen  thousand 
miles  apart,  or  about  twice  as  wide  apart  as  the  diameter 
of  the  earth.     Here  is  a  picture  of  them,  drawn  from  life. 


Biela's  Comet,  split  iir  two. 
(From  Guillemin's  "The  Heavens,"  page  247.) 
19 


410  CONCLUSIONS. 

Did  the  Fenris-Wolf,  the  Midgard-Serpent,  and  the  Dog- 
Garm  look  like  this  ? 

In  1852,  1859,  and  186G,  the  comet  should  have  re- 
turned, but  it  did  not.  It  was  lost.  It  was  dissipated. 
Its  material  was  hanging  around  the  earth  in  fragments 
somewhere.  I  quote  from  a  writer  in  a  recent  issue  of 
the  "  Edinburgh  Review  "  : 

"  The  puzzled  astronomers  were  left  in  a  state  of  tanta- 
lizing uncertainty  as  to  what  had  become  of  it.  At  the 
beginning  of  the  year  1866  this  feeling  of  bewilderment 
gained  expression  in  the  Annual  Report  of  the  Council  of 
the  Royal  Asti'onomical  Society.  The  matter  continued, 
nevertheless,  in  the  same  state  of  provoking  uncertainty 
for  another  six  years.  The  third  period  of  the  perihelion 
passage  had  then  passed,  and  nothing  had  been  seen  of 
the  missing  luminary.  But  on  the  night  of  November 
27,  1872,  night-watchers  were  startled  by  a  sudden  and  a 
very  magnilicent  display  of  falling  stars  or  meteors,  of 
which  there  had  been  no  previous  forecast,  and  Professor 
Klinkerfliies,  of  Berlin,  having  carefully  noted  the  com- 
mon radiant  point  in  space  from  which  this  stai'-shov.^er 
was  discharged  into  the  earth's  atmosphere,  with  the  in- 
tuition of  ready  genius  jumped  at  once  to  the  startling 
inference  that  here  at  last  were  traces  of  the  missing 
luminary.  There  were  eighty  of  the  meteors  that  fur- 
nished a  good  position  for  the  radiant  point  of  the  dis- 
charge, and  that  position,  strange  to  say,  was  very  much 
the  same  as  the  position  in  space  which  Biela's  comet 
should  have  occupied  just  about  that  time  on  its  fourth 
return  toward  perihelion.  Klinkerflues,  therefore,  taking 
this  spot  as  one  point  in  the  path  of  the  comet,  and  carry- 
ing the  path  on  as  a  track  into  forward  space,  fixed  the 
direction  there  through  which  it  should  pass  as  a  'vanish- 
ing-point '  at  the  other  side  of  the  starry  sphere,  anl  hav- 
ing satisfied  himself  of  that  further  position  he  sent  off  a 
telegram  to  the  other  side  of  the  world,  where  alone  it 
could  be  seen — that  is  to  say,  to  Mr.  Pogsou,  of  the  Ma- 
dras Observatory — which  may  be  best  told  in  his  own 
uei'vous  and  simple  words. 


BIELA'S   COMET.  411 

"  Ilerr  Klinkerflues's  telegram  to  Mr.  Pogson,  of  Ma- 
dras, was  to  the  following  effect  : 

"  '  November  30th — Biela  touched  the  earth  on  the 
2Tth  of  November,    Search  for  him  near  Theta  Centauri.' 

"  The  telegram  reached  Madras,  through  Russia,  in 
one  hour  and  thirty-five  minutes,  and  the  sequel  of  this 
curious  passage  of  astronomical  romance  may  be  appro- 
priately told  in  the  words  in  which  Mr.  J'ogson  replied  to 
Herr  Klinkerflues's  pithy  message.  The  answer  was  dated 
Madras,  the  6th  of  December,  and  was  in  the  following 
words  : 

"  '  On  the  30th  of  November,  at  sixteen  hours,  the  time 
of  the  comet  rising  here,  I  was  at  my  post,  but  hopelessly  ; 
clouds  and  rain  gave  me  no  chance.  The  next  morning  I 
had  the  same  bad  luck.  But  on  the  thii-d  trial,  with  a 
line  of  blue  break,  about  17^  hours  mean  time,  I  found 
Hiela  immediately  !  Only  four  comparisons  in  successive 
minutes  could  be  obtained,  in  strong  morning  twilight, 
with  an  anonymous  star  ;  but  direct  motion  of  2*5  sec- 
onds decided  that  I  had  got  the  comet  all  right.  I  noted 
it — circular,  bright,  xcitU  a  decided  nucleus,  but  no  tail, 
and  about  forty-five  seconds  in  diameter.  Next  morning 
I  got  seven  good  comparisons  with  an  anonymous  star, 
showing  a  motion  of  17"9  seconds  in  twenty-eight  min- 
utes, and  I  also  got  two  comparisons  with  a  Madras  star 
in  our  current  catalogue,  and  with  7,734  Taylor.  I  was 
too  anxious  to  secure  one  good  place  for  the  one  in  hand 
to  look  for  the  other  comet,  and  the  fourth  morning  was 
cloudy  and  rainy.' 

"  Herr  Klinkerflues's  commentary  upon  this  communi- 
cation was  that  he  forthwith  proceeded  to  satisfy  himself 
that  no  provoking  accident  had  led  to  the  discovery  of  a 
comet  altogether  unconnected  with  Biela's,  although  in 
this  particular  place,  and  that  he  was  ultimately  quite 
confident  of  the  identity  of  the  comet  observed  by  Mr. 
Pogson  with  one  of  the  two  heads  of  Biela.  It  was  sub- 
sequently settled  that  Mr.  Pogson  had,  most  probably, 
seen  both  heads  of  the  comet,  one  on  the  first  occasion  of 
his  successful  search,  and  the  second  on  the  following 
day  ;  and  the  meteor-shower  experienced  in  Europe  on 
November  27th  was  unquestionably  due  to  the  passage 


412  CONCLUSIONS. 

near  the  earth  of  a  meteoric  trail  traveling  in  the  track 
of  the  comet.  When  the  question  of  a  possible  collision 
was  mooted  in  1832,  Sir  John  Herschel  remarked  that 
such  an  occurrence  might  not  be  unattended  with  danger, 
and  that  on  account  of  the  intersection  of  the  orbits  of 
the  earth  and  the  comet  a  rencontre  would  in  all  likelihood 
take  place  within  the  lapse  of  some  millions  of  years.  As 
a  matter  of  fact  the  collision  did  take  place  on  November 
27,  1872,  and  the  result,  so  far  as  the  earth  was  concerned, 
was  a  magnificent  display  of  aerial  fireworks  !  But  a  more 
telling  piece  of  ready-witted  sagacity  than  this  prompt 
employment  of  the  telegraph  for  the  apprehension  of  the 
nimble  delinquent  can  scarcely  be  conceived.  The  sud- 
den brush  of  the  comet's  tail,  the  instantaneous  telegram 
to  the  opposite  side  of  the  world,  and  the  glimpse  thence 
of  the  vagrant  luminary  as  it  was  just  whisking  itself  off 
into  space  toward  the  star  Theta  Centauri,  together  con- 
stitute a  passage  that  stands  quite  without  a  parallel  in 
the  experience  of  science." 

But  did  the  earth  escape  with  a  mere  shower  of  fire- 
works ? 

I  have  argued  that  the  material  of  a  comet  consists  of 
a  solid  nucleus,  giving  out  fire  and  gas,  enveloped  in  a 
great  gaseous  mass,  and  a  tail  made  up  of  stones,  possi- 
bly gradually  diminishing  in  size  as  they  recede  from  the 
nucleus,  until  the  after-part  of  it  is  composed  of  fine  dust 
ground  from  the  pebbles  and  bowlders  ;  while  beyond  this 
there  may  be  a  still  further  prolongation  into  gaseous 
matter. 

Now,  we  have  seen  that  Biela's  comets  lost  their  tails. 
What  became  of  them  ?  There  is  no  evidence  to  show 
whether  they  lost  them  in  1852, 1859,  1866,  or  1872.  The 
probabilities  are  that  the  demoralization  took  place  before 
1852,  as  otherwise  the  comets  would  have  been  seen,  tails 
and  all,  in  that  and  subsequent  years.  It  is  true  that  the 
earth  came  near  enough  in  1872  to  attract  some  of  the 
wandering  gravel-stones  toward  itself,  and  that  they  fell, 


BIELA'S   COMET.  413 

blazing  and  consuming  themselves  with  the  friction  of 
our  atmosphere,  and  reached  the  surface  of  our  planet,  if 
at  all,  as  cosmic  dust.  But  where  were  the  rest  of  the 
assets  of  these  bankrupt  comets?  They  were  probably 
scattered  around  in  space,  disjecta  membra,  floating 
hither  and  thither,  in  one  place  a  stream  of  stones,  in 
another  a  volume  of  gas  ;  while  the  two  heads  had  fled 
away,  like  the  fugitive  presidents  of  a  couple  of  broken 
banks,  to  the  Canadian  refuge  of  "  Theta  Centaiiri " — 
shorn  of  their  splendors  and  reduced  to  first  principles. 

Did  anything  out  of  the  usual  order  occur  on  the  face 
of  the  earth  about  this  time  ? 

Yes.  In  the  year  1871,  on  Sunday,  the  8th  of  Octo- 
ber, at  half  past  nine  o'clock  in  the  evening,  events  oc- 
curred which  attracted  the  attention  of  the  whole  world, 
which  caused  the  death  of  hundreds  of  human  beings, 
and  the  destruction  of  millions  of  property,  and  which 
involved  three  different  States  of  the  Union  in  the  wildest 
alarm  and  terror. 

The  summer  of  1871  had  been  excessively  dry  ;  the 
moisture  seemed  to  be  evaporated  out  of  the  air  ;  and  on 
the  Sunday  above  named  the  atmospheric  conditions  all 
through  the  Northwest  were  of  the  most  peculiar  char- 
acter. The  writer  was  living  at  the  time  in  Minnesota, 
hundreds  of  miles  from  the  scene  of  the  disasters,  and  he 
can  never  forget  the  condition  of  things.  There  was  a 
parched,  combustible,  inflammable,  furnace-like  feeling  in 
the  air,  that  was  really  alarming.  It  felt  as  if  there  were 
needed  but  a  match,  a  spark,  to  cause  a  world-wide  explo- 
sion. It  was  weird  and  unnatural.  I  have  never  seen 
nor  felt  anything  like  it  before  or  since.  Those  who 
experienced  it  will  bear  me  out  in  these  statements. 

At  that  hour,  half  past  nine  o'clock  in  the  evening,  at 
apparently  the  same  moment,  at  points  hundreds  of  miles 


414  CONCLUSIONS. 

apart,  in  three  different  States,  Wisconsin,  Michigan,  and 
Illinois,  fires  of  the  most  peculiar  and  devastating  kind 
broke  out,  so  far  as  we  know,  by  spontaneous  combustion. 

In  Wisconsin,  on  its  eastern  borders,  in  a  heavily  tim- 
bered country,  near  Lake  Michigan,  a  region  embracing 
four  hundred  square  miles,  extending  north  from  Brown 
County,  and  containing  Peshtigo,  Manistee,  Holland,  and 
numerous  villages  on  the  shores  of  Green  Bay,  was  swept 
bare  by  an  absolute  whirlwind  of  flame.  There  were 
seven  hundred  and  fifty  people  killed  outright,  besides 
great  numbers  of  the  wounded,  maimed,  and  burned,  who 
died  afterward.  More  than  thi'ce  million  dollars'  worth  of 
property  was  destroyed.* 

It  was  no  ordinary  fire.     I  quote  : 

"At  sundown  there  was  a  lull  in  the  wind  and  com- 
parative stillness.  For  two  hours  there  were  no  signs  of 
danger  ;  but  at  a  few  minutes  after  nine  o'clock,  and  by 
a  singular  coincidence,  precisely  the  time  at  lohich  the 
Chicago  fire  commenced,  the  people  of  the  village  heard 
a  terrible  roar.  It  was  that  of  a  tornado,  crushing 
through  the  forests.  Instantly  the  heavens  toere  illumi- 
nated with  a  terrible  glare.  TJie  shy,  which  had  been  so 
dark  a  moment  before,  burst  into  clouds  of  fiame.  A 
spectator  of  the  terrible  scene  says  the  fire  did  not  come 
upon  them  gradually  from  burning  trees  and  other  objects 
to  the  windward,  but  the  first  notice  they  had  of  it  was  a 
whirlicind  of  fiame  in  great  clouds  from  above  the  tops 
of  the  trees,  which  fell  upon  and  entirely  enveloped  every- 
thing. The  poor  people  inhaled  it,  or  the  intensely  hot 
air,  and  fell  down  dead.  This  is  verified  by  the  appear- 
ance of  many  of  the  corpses.  They  were  found  dead  in 
the  roads  and  open  spaces,  xohere  there  xcere  no  visible 
marks  of  fire  near  by,  with  not  a  trace  of  burning  xipon 
their  bodies  or  clothing.  At  the  Sugar  Bush,  which  is  an 
extended  clearing,  in  some   places  four  miles  in  width, 

*  See  "  History  of  the  Great  Conflagration,"  Sheahan  &  Upton,  Chi- 
cago, 1871,  pp.  393,  394,  etc. 


BIELA'S   COMET.  415 

corpses  were  found  in  the  open  road,  between  fences  only 
slightly  burned.  No  mark  of  fire  teas  upon  them  ;  they 
lay  there  as  ifasleejx  This  phenomenon  seems  to  explain 
the  fact  that  so  many  were  killed  in  compact  masses. 
They  seemed  to  have  huddled  together,  in  what  were  evi- 
dently regarded  at  the  moment  as  the  safest  places,  far 
axoay  from  buiklings,  trees,  or  other  hiflcimmable  mate- 
rial, and  there  to  have  died  together."* 

Another  spectator  says  : 

"  Much  has  been  said  of  the  intense  heat  of  the  fires 
which  destroyed  Peshtigo,  Menekauue,  Williamsonville, 
etc.,  but  all  that  has  been  said  can  give  the  stranger  but 
a  faint  conception  of  the  reality.  The  heat  has  been 
compared  to  that  engendered  by  a  flame  concentrated  on 
an  object  by  a  blow-pipe  ;  but  even  that  would  not  ac- 
count for  some  of  the  phenomena.  For  instance,  we  have 
in  our  possession  a  copper  cent  taken  from  the  pocket  of 
a  dead  man  in  the  Peshtigo  Sugar  Bush,  which  will  illus- 
trate our  point.  Tins  cent  has  been  partially  fused,  but 
still  retains  its  round  form,  and  the  inscrij)tion  upon  it  is 
legible.  Others,  in  the  same  pocket,  were  partially  melted, 
and  yet  the  clothing  and  the  body  of  the  man  were  not  even 
singed.  We  do  not  know  in  what  way  to  account  for 
this,  unless,  as  is  asserted  by  some,  the  tornado  and  fire 
were  accompanied  by  electrical  phenomena."  f 

"  It  is  the  universal  testimony  that  the  prevailing  idea 
among  the  people  was,  that  the  last  day  had  come.  Ac- 
customed as  they  were  to  fire,  nothing  like  this  had  ever 
been  known.  They  could  give  no  other  interjDretation  to 
this  ominous  roar,  this  bursting  of  the  sky  with  flame, 
and  this  dropping  do\cn  of  fire  out  of  the  very  heavens, 
consuming  instantly  everything  it  touched. 

"  No  two  give  a  like  description  of  the  great  tornado 
as  it  smote  and  devoured  the  village.  It  seemed  as  if 
'  the  fiery  fiends  of  hell  had  been  loosened,'  says  one.  *  It 
came  in  great  sheeted  fiames  from  heaven,''  says  another. 
'There  was  a  jntiless   rain  of  fire  and   sand.'      'The 

*  See  "  History  of  the  Great  Conflagration,"  Sheahan  &  Upton,  Chi- 
cago, ISYl,  p.  372.  f  Ibid.,  p.  373. 


416  CONCLUSIONS. 

atmosphere  was  all  afire.'  Some  speak  of  ^  great  halls  of 
fire  unrolling  and  shooting  forth  in  streams.''  The  fire 
leaped  over  roofs  and  trees,  and  ignited  whole  streets  at 
once.  No  one  could  stand  before  the  blast.  It  was  a 
race  with  death,  above,  behind,  and  before  them."  * 

A  civil  engineer,  doing  business  in  Peshtigo,  says  : 

"  The  heat  increased  so  rapidly,  as  things  got  well 
afire,  that,  ichen  about  four  hundred  feet  from  the  bridge 
and  the  nearest  building^  I  was  obliged  to  lie  down  be- 
hind a  log  that  was  aground  in  about  two  feet  of  water, 
and  by  going  under  water  now  and  then,  and  holding  my 
head  close  to  the  water  behind  the  log,  I  managed  to 
breathe.  There  were  a  dozen  others  behind  the  same  log. 
If  I  had  succeeded  in  crossing  the  river  and  gone  among 
the  buildings  on  the  other  side,  probably  I  should  have 
been  lost,  as  many  were." 

We  have  seen  Ovid  describing  the  people  of  "the 
earth  "  crouching  in  the  same  way  in  the  water  to  save 
themselves  from  the  flames  of  the  Age  of  Fire. 

In  Michigan,  one  Allison  Weaver,  near  Port  Huron, 
determined  to  remain,  to  protect,  if  possible,  some  mill- 
property  of  which  he  had  charge.  He  knew  the  fire  was 
coming,  and  dug  himself  a  shallow  well  or  pit,  made  a 
thick  plank  cover  to  place  over  it,  and  thus  prepared  to 
bide  the  conflagration. 

I  quote  : 

"He  filled  it  nearly  full  of  water,  and  took  care  to  sat- 
urate the  ground  around  it  for  a  distance  of  several  rods. 
Going  to  the  mill,  he  dragged  out  a  four-inch  plank,  sawed 
it  in  two,  and  saw  that  the  parts  tightly  covered  the  mouth 
of  the  little  well.  '  I  kalkerated  it  would  be  tech  and  go,' 
said  he,  '  but  it  was  the  best  I  could  do.'  At  midnight 
he  had  everything  arranged,  and  the  roaring  then  was 


*  See  "  History  of  the  Great  Conflagration,"  Sheahan  &  Upton,  Chi- 
cago, 1871,  p.  374. 


BIELA'S  COMET.  4I7 

awful  to  hear.  The  clearing  was  ten  to  twelve  acres  in 
extent,  and  Weaver  says  that,  for  two  hours  before  the 
fire  reached  him,  there  was  a  constant  flight  across  the 
ground  of  small  animals.  As  he  rested  a  moment  from 
giving  the  house  another  wetting  down,  a  horse  dashed 
into  the  opening  at  full  speed  and  made  for  the  house. 
Weaver  could  see  him  tremble  and  shake  with  excitement 
and  terror,  and  felt  a  j^ity  for  him.  After  a  moment,  the 
animal  gave  utterance  to  a  snoi't  of  dismay,  ran  two  or 
three  times  around  the  house,  and  then  shot  off  into  the 
woods  like  a  rocket." 

We  have,  in  the  foregoing  pages,  in  the  legends  of 
different  nations,  descriptions  of  the  terrified  animals  fly- 
ing with  the  men  into  the  caves  of  the  earth  to  escape 
the  great  conflagration. 

"  Not  long  after  this  the  fire  came.  Weaver  stood  by 
his  well,  ready  for  the  emergency,  yet  curious  to  see  the 
breaking-in  of  the  flames.  The  roaring  increased  in  vol- 
ume, the  air  became  oppressive,  a  cloud  of  dust  and  cin- 
ders came  showeiing  down,  and  he  could  see  the  flame 
through  the  trees.  It  did  not  run  along  the  ground,  or 
leap  from  tree  to  tree,  but  it  came  on  like  a  tornado,  a 
sheet  of  flame  reaching  from  the  earth  to  the  tops  of  the 
trees.  As  it  struck  the  clearing  he  jumped  into  his  well, 
and  closed  over  the  planks.  He  could  no  longer  see,  but 
he  could  hear.  He  says  that  the  flames  made  no  halt  what- 
ever, or  ceased  their  roaring  for  an  instant,  but  he  hardly 
got  the  opening  closed  before  the  house  and  mill  were 
burning  tinder,  and  both  were  down  in  five  minutes.  The 
smoke  came  down  upon  him  powerfully,  and  his  den  was 
so  hot  he  could  hardly  breathe. 

"  He  knew  that  the  planks  above  him  were  on  fire, 
but,  remembering  their  thickness,  he  waited  till  the  roar- 
ing of  the  flames  had  died  away,  and  then  with  his  head 
and  hands  turned  them  over  and  put  out  the  fire  by  dash- 
ing up  water  with  his  hands.  Although  it  was  a  cold 
night,  and  the  water  had  at  first  chilled  him,  the  heat 
gradually  warmed  him  up  until  he  felt  qiiite  comfortable. 
He  remained  in  his  den  until  daylight,  frequently  turning 


418  CONCLUSIONS. 

over  the  planks  and  putting  out  the  fire,  and  then  the 
worst  had  passed.  The  earth  around  was  on  fire  in  spots, 
house  and  mill  were  gone,  leaves,  brush,  and  logs  were 
swept  clean  away  as  if  shaved  off  and  swept  with  a  broom, 
and  nothing  but  soot  and  ashes  were  to  be  seen."* 

In  Wisconsin,  at  Williamson's  Mills,  there  was  a  large 
but  shallow  well  on  the  jDremises  belonging  to  a  Mr.  Boor- 
man.  The  people,  when  cut  off  by  the  flames  and  wild 
with  terror,  and  thinking  they  would  find  safety  in  the 
water,  leaped  into  this  well.  "  The  relentless  fury  of  the 
flames  drove  them  pell-mell  into  the  pit,  to  struggle  with 
each  other  and  die — some  by  drowning,  and  others  by  fire 
and  suffocation.  None  escaped.  Thirty-two  bodies  were 
found  there.  They  were  in  every  imaginable  position  ; 
but  the  contortions  of  their  limbs  and  the  agonizing  ex- 
pressions of  their  faces  told  the  awful  tale."  f 

The  recital  of  these  details,  horrible  though  they  may 
be,  becomes  excusable  when  we  remember  that  the  ances- 
tors of  our  race  must  have  endured  similar  horrors  in  that 
awful  calamity  which  I  have  discussed  in  this  volume. 

James  B.  Clark,  of  Detroit,  who  was  at  Uniontown, 
Wisconsin,  writes  : 

"  The  fire  suddenly  made  a  rush,  like  the  flash  of  a 
train  of  gunpowder,  and  swept  in  the  shape  of  a  crescent 
around  the  settlement.  It  is  almost  impossible  to  con- 
ceive the  frightful  rapidity  of  the  advance  of  the  flames. 
The  rushing  fire  seemed  to  eat  up  and  annihilate  the 
trees." 

They  saw  a  black  mass  coming  toward  them  from  the 
wall  of  flame  : 

"  It  was  a  stampede  of  cattle  and  horses  thundering 
toward  us,  bellowing,  moaning,  and  neighing  as  they  gal- 

*  See  "  History  of  the  Great  Conflagration,"  Sheahan  &  Upton,  Chi- 
cago, ISVl,  p.  390.  f  Ibid.,  p.  886. 


BIELA'S   COMET.  419 

loped  on  ;  rushing  with  fearful  speed,  their  eyeballs  di- 
lated and  glaring  with  terror,  and  every  motion  betoken- 
ing delirium  of  fright.  Some  had  been  badly  burned,  and 
must  have  plunged  through  a  long  space  of  flame  in  the 
desperate  effort  to  escape.  Following  considerably  be- 
hind came  a  solitary  horse,  panting  and  snorting  and 
nearly  exhausted.  He  was  saddled  and  bridled,  and,  as 
we  first  thought,  had  a  bag  lashed  to  his  back.  As  he 
came  up  we  were  startled  at  the  sight  of  a  young  lad 
lying  fallen  over  the  animal's  neck,  the  bridle  wound 
around  his  hands,  and  the  mane  being  clinched  by  the 
fingers.  Little  effort  was  needed  to  stop  the  jaded  horse, 
and  at  once  release  the  helpless  boy.  He  was  taken  into 
the  house,  and  all  that  we  could  do  was  done  ;  but  he  had 
inhaled  the  smoke,  and  was  seemingly  dying.  Some  time 
elapsed  and  he  revived  enough  to  speak.  He  told  his 
name — Patrick  Byrnes — and  said:  'Father  and  mother 
and  the  children  got  into  the  wagon.  I  don't  know  what 
became  of  them.  Everything  is  burned  up.  I  am  dying. 
Oh  !  is  hell  any  worse  than  this  ?  '  "  * 

How  vividly  does  all  this  recall  the  book  of  Job  and  the 
legends  of  Central  America,  which  refer  to  the  multitudes 
of  the  burned,  maimed,  and  wounded  lying  in  the  caverns, 
moaning  and  crying  like  poor  Patrick  Byrnes,  suffering 
no  less  in  mind  than  in  body  ! 

When  we  leave  Wisconsin  and  pass  about  two  hun- 
dred and  fifty  miles  eastward,  over  Lake  Michigan  and 
across  the  whole  width  of  the  State  of  Michigan,  we  find 
much  the  same  condition  of  things,  but  not  so  terrible 
in  the  loss  of  human  life.  Fully  fifteen  thousand  peo- 
ple icere  rendered  homeless  by  the  fires  y  and  their  food, 
clothing,  crops,  horses,  and  cattle  were  destroyed.  Of 
these  five  to  six  thousand  were  burned  out  the  same  night 
that  the  fires  broke  out  in  Chicago  and  Wisconsin.     The 

*  See  "  History  of  the  Great  Conflagration,"  Sheahan  &  Upton,  Chi- 
cago, 1871,  p.  383. 


420  CONCLUSIONS. 

total  destruction  of  property  exceeded  one  million  dol- 
lars ;  not  only  villages  and  cities,  but  whole  townships, 
were  swept  bare. 

But  it  is  to  Chicago  we  must  turn  for  the  most  ex- 
traordinary results  of  this  atmospheric  disturbance.  It  is 
needless  to  tell  the  story  in  detail.  The  world  knows  it 
by  heart : 

"  Blackened  and  bleeding,  helpless,  panting,  prone. 
On  the  charred  fragments  of  her  shattered  throne, 
Lies  she  who  stood  but  yesterday  alone." 

I  have  only  space  to  refer  to  one  or  two  points. 

The  fire  was  spontaneous.  The  story  of  Mrs.  O'Leary's 
cow  having  started  the  conflagration  by  kicking  over  a 
lantern  was  proved  to  be  false.  It  was  the  access  of  gas 
from  the  tail  of  Biela's  comet  that  burned  up  Chicago  ! 

The  fire-marshal  testified  : 

"  I  felt  it  in  my  bones  that  we  were  going  to  have  a 
burn." 

He  says,  speaking  of  O'Leary's  barn  : 

"  We  got  the  fire  under  control,  and  it  would  not  have 
gone  a  foot  farther  ;  but  the  next  thing  I  knew  they  came 
and  told  me  that  St.  Paul's  church,  about  two  squares 
north,  was  on  fir e^  * 

They  checked  the  church-fire,  but — 

"  The  next  thing  I  knew  the  fire  was  in  Bateham's 
planing-mill." 

A  writer  in  the  New  York  "  Evening  Post "  says  he 
saw  in  Chicago  "  buildings  far  beyond  the  line  of  fire,  and 
in  no  contact  tcith  it,  hurst  into  flames  from  the  interior.'''' 

*  See  "  History  of  the  Great  Conflagration,"  Sheahan  &  Upton,  Chi- 
cago, 1871,  p.  163. 


BIELA'S  COMET.  421 

It  must  not  be  forgotten  that  the  fall  of  1871  was 
marked  by  extraordinary  conflagrations  in  regions  wide- 
ly separated.  On  the  8th  of  October,  the  same  day  the 
Wisconsin,  Michigan,  and  Chicago  fires  broke  out,  the 
States  of  Iowa,  Minnesota,  Indiana,  and  Illinois  were 
severely  devastated  by  prairie-fires  ;  while  terrible  fires 
raged  on  the  Alleghanies,  the  Sierras  of  the  Pacific  coast, 
and  the  Rocky  Mountains,  and  in  the  region  of  the  Red 
River  of  the  North. 

"  The  Annual  Record  of  Science  and  Industry "  for 
1876,  page  84,  says  : 

"  For  weeks  before  and  after  the  great  fire  in  Chicago 
in  1872,  great  areas  of  forest  and  prairie-land,  both  in  the 
United  States  and  the  British  Provinces,  were  on  fire." 

The  flames  that  consumed  a  great  part  of  Chicago 
were  of  an  unusual  character  and  produced  extraordinary 
effects.  They  absolutely  melted  the  hardest  building- 
stone,  which  had  previously  been  considered  fire-proof. 
Iron,  glass,  granite,  were  fused  and  run  together  into  gro- 
tesque conglomerates,  as  if  they  had  been  put  through  a 
blast-furnace.  No  kind  of  material  could  stand  its  breath 
for  a  moment. 

I  quote  again  from  Sheahan  &  Upton's  work  : 

"  The  huge  stone  and  brick  structures  melted  before 
the  fierceness  of  the  flames  as  a  snow-flake  melts  and  dis- 
appears in  water,  and  almost  as  quickly.  Six-story  build- 
ings would  take  fire  and  disappear  for  ever  from  sight  in 
five  minutes  by  the  watch.  .  .  .  The  fire  also  doubled  on 
its  track  at  the  great  Union  Depot  and  burned  half  a 
mile  southward  in  the  very  teeth  of  the  gale — a  gale  which 
blew  a  perfect  tornado,  and  in  which  no  vessel  could  have 
lived  on  the  lake.  .  .  .  Strange,  fantastic  fires  of  blue, 
red,  and  green  played  along  the  cornices  of  building s^  * 

*  "  History  of  the  Chicago  Fire,"  pp.  85,  86. 


422  CONCLUSIONS. 

Hon.  "William  B.  Ogden  wrote  at  the  time  : 

"  The  fire  was  accompanied  by  the  fiercest  tornado  of 
wind  ever  known  to  blow  here."  * 

"  The  most  striking  peculiarity  of  the  fire  was  its  in- 
tense heat.  Nothing  exposed  to  it  escaped.  'Amid  the 
hundreds  of  acres  left  bare  there  is  not  to  be  found  a 
piece  of  wood  of  any  description,  and,  unlike  most  fires, 
it  left  nothin(j  half  burned.  .  .  .  The  fire  swept  the  streets 
of  all  the  ordinary  dust  and  rubbish,  consuming  it  in- 
stantly." f 

The  Athens  marble  burned  like  coal ! 

"The  intensity  of  the  heat  may  be  judged,  and  the 
thorough  combustion  of  everything  wooden  may  be  un- 
derstood, when  we  state  that  in  the  yard  of  one  of  the 
large  agricultural-implement  factories  was  stacked  some 
hundreds  of  tons  of  pig-iron.  This  ii'on  was  two  hundred 
feet  from  any  building.  To  the  south  of  it  was  the  river, 
one  hundred  and  fifty  feet  wide.  No  large  building  but 
the  factory  was  in  the  immediate  vicinity  of  the  fire.  Yet, 
so  great  was  the  heat,  that  this  pile  of  iron  melted  and 
run,  and  is  yioio  in  one  large  and  nearly  solid  mass.''''  | 

The  amount  of  property  destroyed  was  estimated  by 
Mayor  Medill  at  one  hundred  and  fifty  million  dollars ; 
and  the  number  of  people  rendered  houseless,  at  one  hun- 
dred and  twenty-five  thousand.  Several  hundred  lives 
were  lost. 

All  this  brings  before  our  eyes  vividly  the  condi- 
tion of  things  when  the  comet  struck  the  earth  ;  when 
conflagrations  spread  over  wide  areas  ;  when  human  be- 
ings were  consumed  by  the  million  ;  when  their  works 
were  obliterated,  and  the  remnants  of  the  multitude  fled 
before  the  rushing  flames,  filled  with  unutterable  conster- 

*  "  History  of  the  Chicago  Fire,"  p.  8Y. 

f  Ibid.,  p.  119.  X  Ibid.,  p.  121.  ' 


BIELA'S   COMET.  423 

nation  ;  and  as  they  jumped  pell-mell  into  wells,  so  we 
have  seen  them  in  Job  clambering  down  ropes  into  the 
narrow-mouthed,  bottomless  pit. 

Who  shall  say  how  often  the  characteristics  of  our 
atmospherp  have  been  affected  by  accessions  from  extra- 
terrestrial sources,  resulting  in  conflagrations  or  pesti- 
lences, in  failures  of  crops,  and  in  famines  ?  Who  shall 
say  how  far  great  revolutions  and  wars  and  other  pertur- 
bations of  humanity  have  been  due  to  similar  modifica- 
tions ?  There  is  a  world  of  philosophy  in  that  curious 
story,  "Dr.  Ox's  Hobby,"  wherein  we  are  told  how  he 
changed  the  mental  traits  of  a  village  of  Hollanders  by 
increasing  the  amount  of  oxygen  in  the  air  they  breathed. 


424  CONCLUSIONS. 


CHAPTER  VI. 

THE  UNIVERSAL  BELIEF  OF  MANKIND. 

There  are  some  thoughts  and  opinions  which  we  seem 
to  take  by  inheritance  ;  we  imbibe  them  with  our  moth- 
ers' milk  ;  they  are  in  our  blood  ;  they  are  received  in- 
sensibly in  childhood. 

We  have  seen  the  folk-lore  of  the  nations,  passing 
through  the  endless  and  continuous  generation  of  chil- 
dren, unchanged  from  the  remotest  ages. 

In  the  same  way  there  is  an  untaught  but  universal 
feeling  which  makes  all  mankind  regard  comets  with  fear 
and  trembling,  and  which  unites  all  races  of  men  in  a 
universal  belief  that  some  day  the  world  will  be  destroyed 
by  fire. 

There  are  many  things  which  indicate  that  a  far-dis- 
tant, prehistoric  race  existed  in  the  background  of  Egyp- 
tian and  Babylonian  development,  and  that  from  this  peo- 
ple, highly  civilized  and  educated,  we  have  derived  the 
arrangement  of  the  heavens  into  constellations,  and  our 
divisions  of  time  into  days,  weeks,  years,  and  centuries. 
This  people  stood  much  nearer  the  Drift  Age  than  we  do. 
They  understood  it  better.  Their  legends  and  religious 
beliefs  were  full  of  it.  The  gods  carved  on  Hindoo  tem- 
ples or  painted  on  the  walls  of  Assyrian,  Peruvian,  or 
American  structures,  the  flying  dragons,  the  winged  gods, 
the  winged  animals,  Gueumatz,  Rama,  Siva,  Vishnu,  Tez- 
catlipoca,  were  painted  in  the  very  colors  of  the  clays 
which  came  from  the  disintegration  of  the  granite,  "  red. 


THE   UNIVERSAL  BELIEF  OF  MANKIND.         425 

white,  and  blue,"  the  very  colors  which  distinguished  the 
comet ;  and  they  are  all  reminiscences  of  that  great  mon- 
ster. The  idols  of  the  pagan  world  are,  in  fact,  congealed 
history,  and  will  some  day  be  intelligently  studied  as  such. 

Doubtless  this  ancient  astronomical,  zodiac-building, 
and  constellation-constructing  race  taught  the  people  the 
true  doctrine  of  comets  ;  taught  that  the  winding  serpent, 
the  flying  dragon,  the  destructive  winged  dog,  or  wolf, 
or  lion,  whose  sphinx-like  images  now  frown  upon  us  from 
ancient  walls  and  door- ways,  were  really  comets ;  taught 
how  one  of  them  had  actually  struck  the  earth;  and  taught 
that  in  the  lapse  of  ages  another  of  these  multitudinous 
wanderers  of  space  would  again  encounter  our  globe,  and 
end  all  things  in  one  universal  conflagration. 

And  down  through  the  race  this  belief  has  come,  and 
down  through  the  race  it  will  go,  to  the  consummation  of 
time. 

We  find  this  "day  of  wrath"  prefigured  in  the  words 
of  Malachi,  (chap,  iv,  v.  1): 

"1.  For  behold  the  day  cometh  that  shall  burn  as 
an  oven  ;  and  all  the  proud,  yea,  and  all  that  do  wickedly, 
shall  be  stubble  :  and  the  day  that  cometh  shall  burn  them 
up,  saith  the  Lord  of  hosts,  that  it  shall  leave  them  neither 
root  nor  branch. 

"  2.  But  unto  you  that  fear  my  name  shall  the  sun  of 
righteousness  arise  with  healing  in  his  wings  ;  and  ye 
shall  go  forth,  and  grow  up  as  calves  of  the  stall. 

"  3.  And  ye  shall  tread  down  the  wicked  ;  for  they 
shall  be  ashes  under  the  soles  of  your  feet  in  the  day  that 
I  shall  do  this,  saith  the  Lord  of  hosts." 

We  find  the  same  great  catastrophe  foretold  in  the 
book  of  Revelation,  (chap,  xii,  v.  3)  : 

"  And  there  appeared  another  wonder  in  heaven  ;  and 
behold  a  great  red  dragon,  having  seven  heads  and  ten 
horns,  and  seven  crowns  upon  his  heads. 


426  CONCLUSIONS. 

"4.  A7id  his  tail  drew  the  third  part  of  the  stars  of 
heaven,  and  did  cast  them  to  the  earth.^'' 

And  again,  (chap,  vi)  : 

"  12.  And  I  beheld  when  he  had  opened  the  sixth  seal, 
and,  lo,  there  was  a  great  earthquake ;  and  the  sun  became 
black  as  sackcloth  of  hair,  and  the  moon  became  as  blood ; 

"  13.  And  the  stars  of  heaven  fell  unto  the  earth,  even 
as  a  fig-tree  casteth  her  untimely  figs,  when  she  is  shaken 
of  a  mighty  wind. 

"14.  And  the  heaven  departed  as  a  scroll  when  it  is 
rolled  together  ;  and  every  mountain  and  island  xoere 
moved  out  of  their  places. 

"  15.  And  the  kings  of  the  earth,  and  the  great  men, 
and  the  rich  men,  and  the  chief  cajDtains,  and  the  mighty 
men,  and  every  bondman  and  every  freeman,  hid  them- 
selves in  the  dens  and  in  the  rocks  of  the  mountains  • 

"  16.  And  said  to  the  mountains  and  the  rocks,  Fall 
on  us,  and  hide  us  from  the  face  of  him  that  sitteth  on 
the  throne,  and  from  the  wrath  of  the  Lamb  : 

"  17.  For  the  great  day  of  his  icrath  is  come,  and 
who  shall  be  able  to  stand  ?  " 

Here  we  seem  to  have  the  story  of  Job  over  again,  in 
this  prefiguration  of  the  future. 

The  Ethiopian  copy  of  the  apocryphal  book  of  Enoch 
contains  a  poem,  which  is  prefixed  to  the  body  of  that 
work,  and  which  the  learned  author  of  "  Nimrod "  sup- 
poses to  be  authentic.  It  certainly  dates  from  a  vast  an- 
tiquity.    It  is  as  follows  : 

"  Enoch,  a  righteous  man,  who  was  with  God,  an- 
swered and  spoke  while  his  eyes  were  open,  and  while  he 
saw  a  holy  vision  in  the  heavens.  .  .  . 

"Upon  this  account  I  spoke,  and  conversed  with  him 
who  will  go  forth  from,  his  habitation,  the  holy  and 
mighty  One,  the  God  of  the  world. 

"  Who  will  hereafter  tread  upon  the  mountain  Sinai, 
and  appear  with  his  hosts,  and  be  manifested  in  the 
strength  of  his  power  from  heaven. 


THE   UNIVERSAL  BELIEF  OF  MANKIND.         427 

"All  shall  be  afraid,  and  the  watchers  be  terrified. 
Great  fear  and  trembling  shall  seize  even  to  the  ends  of 
the  earth. 

"  The  lofty  mountains  shall  be  troubled,  and  the  ex- 
alted hills  depressed,  melting  like  honeycomb  in  the  flame. 

"  The  earth  shall  be  immerged,  and  all  things  which  are 
in  it  perish.  .  .  . 

"  He  shall  preserve  the  elect,  and  toward  them  exer- 
cise clemency.  .  .  .  The  whole  earth  is  full  of  water." 

This  is  either  history  or  prophecy. 

In  the  Second  Epistle  General  of  Peter,  (chap,  iii,)  we 
have  some  allusions  to  the  past,  and  some  prophecies 
based  upon  the  past,  which  are  very  curious  : 

Yerse  5.  "  For  this  they  willingly  are  ignorant  of, 
that  by  the  word  of  God  the  heavens  were  of  old,  and 
the  earth  standing  out  of  the  water  and  in  the  water." 

That  is  to  say,  the  earth  was,  as  in  Ovid  and  Ragna- 
rok,  and  the  legends  generally,  an  island,  "  standing  out 
of  the  water  and  in  the  water." 

Yerse  6.  "Whereby  the  xoorld  that  then  was,  being 
overflowed  with  water,  perished." 

This  seems  to  refer  to  the  island  Atlantis,  "  overflowed 
with  water,"  and  destroyed,  as  told  by  Plato  ;  thereby 
forming  a  very  distinct  connection  between  the  Island  of 
Poseidon  and  the  Deluge  of  Noah. 

We  read  on  : 

Yerse  7.  "  But  the  heavens  and  the  earth,  which  are 
now,  by  the  same  word  are  kept  in  store,  reserved  unto 
fire  against  the  day  of  judgment  and  perdition  of  un- 
godly men." 

Yerse  10.  "But  the  day  of  the  Lord  will  come  as  a 
thief  in  the  night  ;  in  the  Avhich  the  heavens  shall  pass 
away  with  a  great  noise,  and  the  elements  shall  melt  with 
fervent  heat,  the  earth  also  and  the  works  that  are  there- 
in shall  be  burned  up." 


428  CONCLUSIONS. 

The  Gothic  mythology  tells  iis  that  Surt,  with  his 
flaming  sword,  "  shall  come  at  the  end  of  the  world  ;  he 
shall  vanquish  all  the  gods  ;  he  shall  give  up  the  universe 
a  prey  to  the  flames." 

This  belief  in  the  ultimate  destruction  of  the  world 
and  all  its  inhabitants  by  fire  was  found  among  the  Amer- 
ican races  as  well  as  those  of  the  Old  World  : 

"The  same  terror  inspired  the  Peruvians  at  every 
eclipse  ;  for  some  day — taught  the  Amantas — the  shadow 
will  veil  the  sun  for  evei*,  and  land,  moon,  and  stars  will 
be  wrapped  in  a  devouring  conflagration,  to  know  no  re- 
genei'ation."  * 

The  Algonquin  races  believed  that  some  day  Michabo 
"will  stamp  his  foot  on  the  ground,  flames  will  burst 
forth  to  consume  the  habitable  land  ;  only  a  pair,  or  only, 
at  most,  those  who  have  maintained  inviolate  the  institu- 
tions he  ordained,  will  he  protect  and  preserve  to  inhabit 
the  new  world  he  will  then  fabricate."  f 

Nearly  all  the  American  tribes  had  similar  presenti- 
ments. The  Chickasaws,  the  Mandans  of  the  Missouri, 
the  Pueblo  Indians  of  New  Mexico,  the  Muyscr.s  of  Bo- 
gota, the  Botocudos  of  Brazil,  the  Ai-aucanians  of  Chili, 
the  Winnebagoes,  all  have  possessed  such  a  belief  from 
time  immemorial.  The  Mayas  of  Yucatan  had  a  predic- 
tion which  Father  Lizana,  cure  of  Itzamal,  preserved  in 
the  Spanish  language  : 

"  At  the  close  of  the  ages,  it  hath  been  decreed, 
Shall  perish  and  vanish  each  weak  god  of  men. 
And  the  world  shall  be  purged  with  raveninrj  fire?'' 

We  know  that  among  oiir  own  people,  the  European 
races,  this  looking  forward  to  a  conflagration  w^hich  is  to 
end  all  things  is  found  everywhere  ;  and  that  everywhere 
a  comet  is  regarded  with  terror.     It  is  a  messenger  of 

*  Brinton's  "  Myths,"  p.  235.  f  Ibid. 


THE   UNIVERSAL  BELIEF  OF  MANKIND.         429 

woe  and  disaster  ;  it  is  a  dreadful  threat  shining  in  the 
heavens  ;  it  is  "  God's  rod,"  even  as  it  was  in  Job's  day. 

I  could  fill  pages  with  the  proofs  of  the  ti'uth  of  this 
statement. 

An  ancient  writer,  describing  the  great  meteoric  shower 
of  the  year  1202,  says  : 

"  The  stars  flew  against  one  another  like  a  scattering 
swarm  of  locusts,  to  the  right  and  left ;  this  phenomenon 
lasted  until  daybreak  ;  people  were  thrown  into  conster- 
nation and  cried  to  God,  the  Most  High,  with  confused 
clamor."  * 

The  great  meteoric  display  of  1366  produced  similar 
effects.     An  historian  of  the  time  says  : 

"  Those  who  saw  it  were  filled  with  such  great  fear 
and  dismay  that  they  were  astounded,  imagining  that 
they  were  all  dead  men,  and  that  the  end  of  the  world 
had  come."  f 

How  could  such  a  universal  terror  have  fixed  itself  in 
the  blood  of  the  race,  if  it  had  not  originated  from  some 
great  primeval  fact  ?  And  all  this  terror  is  associated 
with  a  dragon. 

And  Chambers  says : 

"  The  dragon  appears  in  the  mythical  history  and  le- 
gendary poetry  of  almost  every  nation,  as  the  emblem 
of  the  destructive  and  anarchical  principle  ;  ...  as  mis- 
directed physical  force  and  untamable  animal  passions. 
.  .  .  The  dragon  proceeds  openly  to  work,  running  on  its 
feet  with  expanded  wings,  and  head  and  tail  erect,  vio- 
lently and  ruthlessly  outraging  decency  and  propriety, 
spouting  jive  and  fury  from  both  mouth  and  tall,  and 
wasting  and  devastating  the  whole  landP  | 

This  fiery  monster  is  the  comet. 

*  "Popular  Science  Monthly,"  June,  188'2,  p.  19:].  f  Ibid.,  p.  193. 

\  "  Chambers's  Encyclopaedia,"  vol.  iii,  p.  G55. 


430  CONCLUSIONS. 

And  Milton  speaks  from  the  same  universal  inspira- 
tion when  he  tells  us  : 

"A  comet  burned, 
That  fires  the  length  of  Ophiucus  huge 
In  th'  arctic  sky,  and  from  its  horrid  hair 
Shakes  pestilence  and  icar.''^ 

And  in  the  Shakespeare  plays  *  we  read  : 

"  Hung  be  the  heavens  with  black,  yield  day  to  night ! 
Comets,  importing  change  of  times  and  states, 
Brandish  your  crystal  tresses  in  the  sky  ; 
And  with  them  scourge  the  bad  revolting  stai's." 

Man,  by  an  inherited  instinct,  regards  the  comet  as  a 
great  terror  and  a  great  foe  ;  and  the  heart  of  humanity 
sits  uneasily  when  one  blazes  in  the  sky.  Even  to  the 
scholar  and  the  scientist  they  are  a  puzzle  and  a  fear  ; 
they  are  erratic,  unusual,  anarchical,  monstrous — some- 
thing let  loose,  like  a  tiger  of  the  heavens,  athwart  an 
orderly,  peaceful,  and  harmonious  world.  They  may  be 
impalpable  and  harmless  attenuations  of  gas,  or  they  may 
be  loaded  with  death  and  ruin  ;  but  in  any  event  man 
can  not  contemplate  them  without  terror. 

*  1  Henry  VI,  1,  1. 


THE  EARTH  STRUCK  BY  COMETS  MANY  TIMES.    431 


CHAPTER  VII. 

TEE  EARTH  STRUCK  BY  COMETS  MANY  TIMES. 

If  the  reader  is  satisfied,  from  my  reasoning  and  the 
facts  I  have  adduced,  that  the  so-called  Glacial  Age  really 
represents  a  collision  of  the  earth  with  one  of  these  wan- 
dering luminaries  of  space,  the  question  can  not  but  occur 
to  him,  Was  this  the  first  and  only  occasion,  during  all 
the  thousands  of  millions  of  years  that  our  planet  has 
been  revolving  on  its  axis  and  circling  around  the  sun, 
that  such  a  catastrophe  has  occurred  ? 

The  answer  must  be  in  the  negative. 

We  find  that  all  through  the  rocky  record  of  our  globe 
the  same  phenomena  which  we  have  learned  to  recognize 
as  peculiar  to  the  Drift  Age  are,  at  distant  intervals,  re- 
peated. 

The  long  ages  of  the  Palaeozoic  Time  jiassed  with  few 
or  no  disturbances.  The  movements  of  the  earth's  crust 
oscillated  at  a  rate  not  to  exceed  one  foot  in  a  century.* 
It  was  an  age  of  peace.  Then  came  a  tremendous  con- 
vulsion. It  has  been  styled  by  the  geologists  "  the  epoch 
of  the  Appalachian  revolution." 

"  Strata  were  upraised  and  flexed  into  great  folds, 
some  of  the  folds  a  score  or  more  of  miles  in  span.  Deep 
fissures  were  opened  in  the  earth's  crust,"  like  the  fiords 
or  great  rock-cracks  which  accompanied  the  Diluvial  or 
Drift  Age.  "  Rocks  were  consolidated  ;  and  over  some 
parts  sandstones  and  shales  were  crystallized  into  gneiss, 

*  Dana's  "Text-Book,"  p.  150. 


432 


CONCLUSIONS. 


mica-schist,  and  other  related  rocks,  and  limestone  into 
architectural  and  statuary  marble.  Bituminous  coal  was 
turned  into  anthracite  in  Pennsylvania."  * 

I  copy  from  the  same  work  (p.  153)  the  following  cut, 
showing  the  extent  to  which  the  rocks  were  crushed  out 
of  shape  : 


Section  on  the  Schuylkill,  Pennsylvania. 

P,  Pottsville  on  the  coal-measures ;  2,  CalcLferous  formation ;  3,  Trenton ; 
4,  Hudson  River;  5,  Oneida  and  Niagara;  7,  Lower  Ilelderberg;  8, 
10,  11,  Devonian;  12,13,  Subcarboniferous ;  14,  Carboniferous,  or  coal- 
measures. 

These  tremendous  changes  wer^  caused  by  a  pressure 
of  some  kind  which  came  from  the  east,  from  where  the 
Atlantic  Ocean  now  rolls. 

"  It  was  due  to  a  lateral  pressure,  the  folding  having 
taken  place  just  as  it  might  in  paper  or  cloth  under  a  lat- 
eral or  2)ushin(/  movement."  f 

"  It  was  accompanied  by  c/)'eat  heat,  which  melted  and 
consolidated  the  rocks,  changed  their  condition,  drove  the 
volatile  gases  out  of  the  bituminous  coal  and  changed  it 
into  anthracite,  in  some  places  altered  it  to  graphite,  as  if 
it  had  been  passed  through  a  furnace."  J 

It  also  made  an  almost  universal  slaughter  of  all  forms 
of  life  : 

"  The  extermination  of  life  which  took  place  at  this 
time  was  one  of  the  most  extensive  in  all  geological  his- 
tory ;  ...  no  fossils  of  the  Carboniferous  formation  occur 
in  later  rocks."  ** 

*  Dana's  "  Text-Book,"  p.  152.  f  Ibid.,  p.  155. 

X  Ibid.,  p.  155.  *  Ibid.,  p.  15Y. 


THE  EARTH  STRUCK  BY  COMETS  MAXY  TIMES.     433 

It  was  accompanied  or  followed,  as  in  the  Drift  Age, 
by  tremendous  floods  of  water  ;  the  evaporated  seas  re- 
turned to  the  earth  in  wasting  storms  : 

"  The  waters  commenced  the  work  of  denudation, 
which  has  been  continued  to  the  present  time."  * 

Is  not  all  this  a  striking  confirmation  of  my  theory  ? 

Here  we  find  that,  long  before  the  age  of  man,  a  fear- 
ful catastrophe  happened  to  the  earth.  Its  rocks  were 
melted — not  merely  decomposed,  as  in  the  Drift  Age, — but 
actually  melted  and  metamorphosed  ;  the  heat,  as  in  the 
Drift  Age,  sucked  up  the  waters  of  the  seas,  to  cast  them 
down  again  in  great  floods  ;  it  wiped  out  nearly  all  the 
life  of  the  planet,  even  as  the  Drift  Age  exterminated  the 
great  mammals  ;  whatever  drift  then  fell  probably  melted 
with  the  burning  rocks. 

Here  are  phenomena  which  no  ice-sheet,  though  it 
were  a  thousand  miles  thick,  can  explain  ;  here  is  heat, 
not  ice  ;  combustion,  not  cold  ;  and  yet  all  these  phe- 
nomena are  but  the  results  which  we  have  seen  would 
naturally  follow  the  contact  of  the  earth  with  a  comet. 

But  while,  in  this  j^articular  case,  the  size  of  the 
comet,  or  its  moi'e  fiery  nature,  melted  the  surface  of  the 
globe,  and  changed  the  very  texture  of  the  solid  rocks, 
we  find  in  the  geological  record  the  evidences  of  repeated 
visitations  when  Drift  was  thrown  upon  the  eai'th  in  great 
quantities  ;  but  the  heat,  as  in  the  last  Drift  Age,  was  not 
great  enough  to  consume  all  things. 

In  the  Cambrian  formation,  conglomerates  are  found, 
combinations  of  stones  and  hardened  clay,  very  much  like 
the  true  "till." 

In  the  Lower  Silurian  of  the  south  of  Scotland,  large 
blocks  and  bowlders  (from  one  foot  to  five  feet  in  diam- 

*  Dana's  "  Text-Book,"  p.  156. 
20 


434  CONCLUSIOXS. 

eter)  are  found,  "  of  gneiss,  syenite,  granite,  etc.,  none  of 
which  belong  to  the  rocks  of  that  neighborhood." 
Geikie  says  : 

"  Possibly  these  bowlders  may  have  come  from  some 
ancient  Atlantis,  transported  by  ice."  * 

The  conglomerates  belonging  to  the  Old  Red  Sandstone 
formation  in  the  north  of  England  and  in  Scotland,  we  are 
told,  "  closely  resemble  a  consolidated  bowlder  drift."  f 

Near  Victoria,  in  Australia,  a  conglomerate  was  found 
nearly  one  hundred  feet  in  thickness. 

"Great  beds  of  conglomerate  occur  at  the  bottom  of 
the  Carboniferous,  in  various  parts  of  Scotland,  which  it 
is  difficult  to  believe  are  other  than  ancient  morainic  de- 
bris. They  are  frequently  quite  unstratified,  and  the 
stones  often  shoio  that  peculiar  hlunted  form  ichich  is  so 
characteristic  of  glacial  icork.""  \ 

Professor  Ramsay  found  well-scratched  and  blunted 
stones  in  a  Permian  conglomerate. 

In  the  north  of  Scotland,  a  coarse,  bowlder-conglom- 
erate is  associated  with  the  Jurassic  strata.  The  Creta- 
ceous formation  has  yielded  great  stones  and  bowlders. 
In  the  Eocene  of  Switzerland,  erratics  have  been  found, 
some  angular  and  some  rounded.  They  often  attain  great 
size  ;  one  measured  one  hundred  and  five  feet  in  length, 
ninety  feet  in  breadth,  and  forty-five  feet  in  height. 
Some  of  the  blocks  consist  of  a  kind  of  granite  not 
knoicn  to  occur  anyichere  in  the  Aljys. 

Geikie  says  : 

"  The  occurrence  in  the  Eocene  of  huge  ice-carried 
blocks  seems  incomj^rehenslble  when  the  general  character 
of  the  Eocene  fossils  is  taken  into  account,  for  these  have 
a  soniewhat  tropical  aspect.  So,  likewise,  the  apj^earance 
of  ice-transported  blocks  in  the  Miocene  is  a  sore  puzzle, 

*  "  The  Great  Ice  Age,"  p.  478.  \  Ibid.,  p.  479.  t  Ibid. 


THE  EARTH  STRUCK  BY  COMETS  MANY  TDIES.     435 

as  the  fossils  imbedded  in  this  formation  speak  to  us  of 
tropical  and  sub-tropical  climates  having  prevailed  in 
Central  Europe."^' 

It  was  precisely  during  the  age  when  a  warm  climate 
prevailed  in  Spitzbergen  and  North  Greenland  that  these 
erratics  were  dropped  "down  on  the  plains  of  Italy  ! 

And,  strange  to  say,  just  as  we  have  found  the  Drift- 
deposits  of  Europe  and  America  unf  ossilif erous, — that  is  to 
say,  containing  no  traces  of  animal  or  vegetable  life, — so 
these  strange  stone  and  clay  deposits  of  other  and  more 
ancient  ages  were  in  like  manner  unfossiliferous.f 

In  the  "  flysch  "  of  the  Eocene  of  the  Alps,  few  or  no 
fossils  have  been  found.  In  the  conglomerates  of  Turin, 
belonging  to  the  Upper  Miocene  period,  not  a  single  or- 
ganic remain  has  been  found. 

What  conclusion  is  forced  upon  us  ? 

That,  wa-itten  in  the  rocky  jjages  of  the  great  volume 
of  the  planet,  are  the  records  of  repeated  visitations  from 
the  comets  which  then  rushed  through  the  heavens. 

Ko  trace  is  left  of  their  destructive  powers,  save  the 
huge,  unstratified,  unfossiliferous  dei:)Osits  of  clay  and 
stones  and  bowlders,  locked  away  between  great  layers  of 
the  sedimentary  rocks. 

Can  it  be  that  there  wanders  through  immeasurable 
space,  upon  an  orbit  of  such  size  that  millions  of  years 
are  required  to  complete  it,  some  monstrous  luminary,  so 
vast  that  when  it  returns  to  us  it  fills  a  large  part  of  the 
orbit  which  the  earth  describes  around  the  sun,  and 
showers  down  upon  us  deluges  of  debris,  while  it  fills  the 
world  with  flame  ?  And  are  these  recurring  strata  of 
stones  and  clay  and  bowlders,  written  upon  these  widely 
separated  pages  of  the  geologic  volume,  the  record  of  its 
oft  and  regularly  recurring  visitations  ? 

*  "The  Great  Ice  Age,"  p.  480.  f  Ibid.,  p.  481. 


436  CONCLUSIONS. 

Who  shall  say?  Science  will  yet  compare  minutely 
the  composition  of  these  different  conglomerates.  No 
secret  can  escape  discovery  when  the  light  of  a  world's 
intelligence  is  brought  to  bear  upon  it. 

4nd  even  here  we  stumble  over  a  still  more  tremen- 
dous fact  : 

It  has  been  supposed  that  the  primeval  granite  was 
the  molten  crust  of  the  original  glowing  ball  of  the  earth, 
when  it  first  hardened  as  it  cooled. 

But,  lo  !  the  microscope,  (so  Professor  Winchell  tells 
us,)  reveals  that  this  very  granite,  this  foundation  of  all 
our  rocks,  this  ancient  globe-crust,  is  itself  made  up  of 
sedimentary  rocks,  which  were  melted,  fused,  and  run 
together  in  some  awful  conflagration  which  wiped  out  all 
life  on  the  planet. 

Beyond  the  granite,  then,  there  were  seas  and  shores, 
winds  and  rains,  rivers  and  sediment  carried  into  the 
watei'S  to  form  the  rocks  melted  up  in  this  granite  ;  there 
were  countless  ages  ;  possibly  there  were  animals  and 
man  ;  but  all  melted  and  consumed  together.  Was  this, 
too,  the  result  of  a  comet  visitation  ? 

Who  shall  tell  the  age  of  this  old  earth  ?  Who  shall 
count  the  ebbs  and  flows  of  eternity  ?  A\^ho  shall  say 
how  often  this  planet  has  been  developed  up  to  the  high- 
est forms  of  life,  and  how  often  all  this  has  been  obliter- 
ated in  universal  fire  ? 

The  earth  is  one  great  tomb  of  life  : 

"  All  that  tread 
The  globe  are  but  a  handful  to  the  tribes 
That  slumber  in  its  bosom." 

In  endless  series  the  ages  stretch  along — birth,  life, 
development,  destruction.  And  so  shall  it  be  till  time  is 
no  more. 


THE  AFTER -WORD.  437 


CHAPTER  VIIL 

THE    AFTER-WORD. 

Whex  that  magnificent  genius,  Francis  Bacon,  sent 
forth  one  of  his  great  works  to  the  world,  he  wrote  this 
prayer  : 

"  Thou,  O  Father,  who  gavest  the  visible  light  as  the 
first-born  of  thy  creatures,  and  didst  pour  into  man  the 
intellectual  light  as  the  top  and  consummation  of  thy 
workmanship,  be  pleased  to  protect  and  govern  this  work, 
which  coming  from  thy  goodness  returneth  to  thy  glory. 
.  .  .  ^Ye  humbly  beg  that  this  mind  may  be  steadfastly 
in  us  ;  and  that  thou,  by  our  hands  and  the  hands  of  oth- 
ers, on  whom  thou  shalt  bestow  the  same  spirit,  wilt 
please  to  convey  a  largess  of  new  alms  to  thy  family  of 
mankind." 

And  again  he  says  : 

"  This  also  we  beg,  that  human  things  may  not  preju- 
dice such  as  are  divine  ;  neither  that  from  the  unlocking 
of  the  gates  of  sense,  and  the  kindling  of  a  greater  nat- 
ural light,  anything  of  incredulity,  or  intellectual  night, 
may  arise  in  our  minds  toward  divine  mysteries." 

In  the  same  spirit,  but  humbly  halting  afar  after  this 
illustrious  man,  I  should  be  sorry  to  permit  this  book  to 
go  out  to  the  world  without  a  word  to  remove  the  im- 
pression which  some  who  read  it,  and  may  believe  it,  may 
form,  that  such  a  vast  catastrophe  as  I  have  depicted 
militates  against  the  idea  that  God  rules  and  cares  for  his 
world  and  his  creatures.  It  will  be  asked,  If  "  there  is  a 
special  providence  even  in  the  fall  of  a  sparrow,"  how 


438  CONCLUSIONS. 

could  He  have  permitted  such  a  calamity  as  this  to 
overtake  a  beautiful,  populous,  and  perhaps  civilized 
world  ? 

Here  we  fall  again  upon  the  great  debate  of  Job,  and 
we  may  answer  in  the  words  M'hich  the  author  of  that 
book  puts  into  the  mouth  of  God  himself,  when  from  out 
the  whirlwind  he  answered  him  : 

"  Shall  he  that  contendeth  with  the  Almighty  instruct 
him?     He  that  reproveth  God,  let  him  answer." 

In  other  words.  Who  and  what  is  man  to  penetrate 
the  counsels  and  purposes  of  the  Creator  ;  and  who  are 
you,  Job  ? — 

"  Where  wast  thou  when  I  laid  the  foundations  of  the 
earth  ?     Declare  it,  if  thou  hast  understanding. 

"  Who  hath  laid  the  measures  thereof,  if  thou  know- 
est  ?     Or  who  has  stretched  the  line  upon  it  ? 

"Whereupon  are  the  foundations  thereof  fastened? 
Or  who  laid  the  corner-stone  thereof  ? 

"  When  the  morning  stars  sang  together,  and  all  the 
sons  of  God  shouted  for  joy." 

Consider,  Job,  the  littleness  of  man,  the  greatness  of 
the  universe  ;  and  what  right  have  you  to  ask  Him,  who 
made  all  this,  the  reasons  for  his  actions  ? 

And  this  is  a  sufficient  answer :  A  creature  seventy 
inches  long  prying  into  the  purposes  of  an  Awful  Some- 
thing, whose  power  ranges  so  far  that  blazing  suns  are 
seen  only  as  mist-specks  ! 

But  I  may  make  another  answer  : 

Although  it  seems  that  many  times  have  comets  smit- 
ten the  earth,  covering  it  with  debris,  or  causing  its  rocks 
to  boil,  and  its  waters  to  ascend  into  the  heavens,  yet, 
considering  all  life,  as  revealed  in  the  fossils,  from  the 
first  cells  unto  this  day,  nothing  has  2^c^'ished  that  was 
worth  preserving. 


THE  AFTER-WORD.  439 

So  far  as  we  can  judge,  after  every  cataclysm  the  world 
has  risen  to  higher  levels  of  creative  development. 

If  I  am  right,  despite  these  incalculable  tons  of  matter 
piled  on  the  earth,  despite  heat  and  cyclones  and  darkness 
and  ice  and  floods,  not  even  a  tender  tropical  plant  fit  to 
adorn  or  sustain  man's  life  was  blotted  out ;  not  an  ani- 
mal valuable  for  domestication  was  exterminated  ;  and 
not  even  the  great  inventions  which  man  had  attained 
to,  during  the  Tertiary  Age,  were  lost.  Nothing  died 
but  that  which  stood  in  the  j)athway  of  man's  develoj)- 
ment, — the  monstrous  animals,  the  Neanderthal  races,  the 
half-human  creatures  intermediate  between  man  and  the 
brute.  The  great  centers  of  human  activity  to-day  in 
Europe  and  America  are  upon  the  Drift-deposits  ;  the 
richest  soils  are  compounded  of  the  so-called  glacial  clays. 
Doubtless,  too,  the  human  brain  was  forced  during  the 
Drift  Age  to  higher  reaches  of  development  under '  the 
terrible  ordeals  of  the  houi*. 

Surely,  then,  we  can  afford  to  leave  God's  planets  in 
God's  hands.  Not  a  particle  of  dust  is  whirled  in  the 
funnel  of  the  cyclone  but  God  identifies  it,  and  has 
marked  its  path. 

If  we  fall  again  upon 

"  Axe-ages,  sword-ages, 
Wind-ages,  murder-ages" — 

if  "  sensual  sins  grow  huge  "  ;  if  "brother  spoils  brother"  ; 
if  Sodom  and  Gomorrah  come  again — who  can  say  that 
God  may  not  bring  out  of  the  depths  of  space  a  rejuve- 
nating comet  ? 

Be  assured  of  one  thing — this  world  tends  now  to  a 
deification  of  matter. 

Dives  says  :  "  The  earth  is  firm  under  my  feet  ;  I  own 
my  possessions  down  to  the  center  of  the  earth  and  up  to 


440  CONCLUSIONS. 

the  heavens.  If  fire  sweeps  away  my  houses,  the  insurance 
company  reimburses  me  ;  if  mobs  destroy  them,  the  gov- 
ernment pays  me  ;  if  civil  war  comes,  I  can  convert  them 
into  bonds  and  move  away  until  the  storm  is  over  ;  if 
sickness  comes,  I  have  the  highest  skill  at  my  call  to  fight 
it  back  ;  if  death  comes,  I  am  again  insured,  and  my  estate 
makes  money  by  the  transaction  ;  and  if  there  is  another 
world  than  this,  still  am  I  insured  :  I  have  taken  out  a 
policy  in  the  church,  and  pay  my  premiums  semi- 
annually to  the  minister," 

And  Dives  has  an  imexpressed  belief  that  heaven  is 
only  a  larger  Wall  Street,  where  the  millionaires  occupy 
the  front  benches,  while  those  who  never  had  a  bank  ac- 
count on  earth  sing  in  the  chorus. 

Speak  to  Dives  of  lifting  up  the  plane  of  all  the  under- 
fed, under-paid,  benighted  millions  of  the  earth — his  fel- 
low-men— to  higher  levels  of  comfort,  and  joy,  and  intel- 
ligence— not  tearing  down  any  but  building  up  all — and 
Dives  can  not  understand  you. 

Ah,  Dives  !  consider,  if  there  is  no  other  life  than  this, 
the  fate  of  these  uncounted  millions  of  your  race  !  "What 
does  existence  give  to  them  ?  "NYhat  do  they  get  out  of 
all  this  abundant  and  beautiful  world  ? 

To  look  down  the  vista  of  such  a  life  as  theirs  is  like 
gazing  into  one  of  the  corridors  of  the  Catacombs  :  an 
alley  filled  with  reeking  bones  of  dead  men  ;  while  from 
the  cross-arches,  waiting  for  the  poor  man's  coming  on, 
ghastly  shapes  look  out : — sickness  and  want  and  sin  and 
grim  despair  and  red-eyed  suicide. 

Put  yourself  in  his  place,  Dives,  locked  up  in  such  a 
cavern  as  that,  and  the  key  thrown  away ! 

Do  not  count  too  much.  Dives,  on  your  lands  and 
houses  and  parchments  ;  your  guns  and  cannon  and  laws  ; 
your  insurance  companies  and  your  governments.     There 


THE  AFTER-WORD.  441 

may  be  even  now  one  coining  from  beyond  Arcturus,  or 
Aldebaran,  or  Coma  Berenices,  with  glowing  countenance 
and  horrid  hair,  and  millions  of  tons  of  debris,  to  over- 
whelm you  and  your  possessions,  and  your  corporations, 
and  all  the  ant-like  devices  of  man  in  one  common  ruin. 

Build  a  little  broader.  Dives.  Establish  spiritual  rela- 
tions. Matter  is  not  everything.  You  do  not  deal  in  cer- 
tainties. You  are  but  a  vitalized  speck,  filled  with  a  frac- 
tion of  God's  delegated  intelligence,  crawling  over  an 
egg-shell  filled  with  fire,  whirling  madly  through  infinite 
space,  a  target  for  the  bombs  of  a  universe. 

Take  your  mind  off  your  bricks  and  mortar,  and  put 
out  your  tentacles  toward  the  great  spiritual  world  around 
you.  Open  communications  with  God.  You  can  not  help 
God.  For  Him  who  made  the  Milky  Way  you  can  do 
nothing.  But  here  are  his  creatures.  Not  a  nerve,  mus- 
cle, or  brain-convolution  of  the  humblest  of  these  but 
duplicates  your  o\sai  ;  you  excel  them  simply  in  the  co- 
ordination of  certain  inherited  faculties  which  have  given 
you  success.  Widen  your  heart.  Put  your  intellect  to 
work  to  so  readjust  the  values  of  labor,  and  increase  the 
productive  capacity  of  Nature,  that  plenty  and  happiness, 
light  and  hope,  may  dwell  in  every  heart,  and  the  Cata- 
combs be  closed  for  ever. 

And  from  such  a  world  God  will  fend  off  the  comets 
with  his  great  right  arm,  and  the  angels  will  exult  over 
it  in  heaven. 


I]Sr  DE  X. 


Aas,  382. 

Abdelmelik,  268. 

Ad,  269,  278. 

Adima,  372,  373,  383. 

Adonis,  233,  241. 

yEjiean,  368. 

Aerolites,  254,  397,  398. 

^schylus,  262. 

Africa,  260. 

Afrite,  tbe,  in  the  pillar,  270. 

After- Word  The,  437. 

Ahi,  237. 

Ahriman,  134,  171,  237. 

Ahura-Mazda,  171. 

Aleutian  Archipelago,  377. 

Aleuts,  the  legend  of,  258. 

Algonquin  legends,  the,  173. 

Algonquins,  belief  of,  428. 

Angra-.Manyus,  237. 

Animal-fables,  origin  of,  197. 

Animal  names  of  tribes,  363;  found 

among  Arabs,  363  ;  Jews,  364. 
Apocatequil,  180,  256. 
Appalachian,  the,  revolution,  431. 
Arabian  legends,  268,  374. 
Arcadia,  370. 
Archaic  caves,  the,  348. 
Ardjouna,  372. 
Ariconte,  241. 
Aristophanes,  208. 
Arthur,  King,  117. 
Aryana-Vaejo,  237- 
Asa-Bridge,  379,381. 
Asas,  the  golden  tablets  of  the,  344. 
Asas,  the,  371,  379,  380. 
Asas,  the  origin  of  the  word,  382. 
Asgard,  151, 312,  370-372,  378, 383. 
Asuras,  the,  238. 


Atachuchu,  179. 

Atlantis,   375,   376,  378,   381-383, 

396,  404,  427,  434. 
Atlas,  260,  308,  369,  382. 
Australia,  ancient  Drift-deposits  of, 

434. 
Avatar,  second  Hindoo,  132. 
Axis  of  earth,  supposed  change  of, 

58. 
Azhidahaka.,  171. 
Azores,  the,  376,  377,  381,  388. 
Aztec  legend,  169. 
Aztec  calendar,  259. 
Aztecs,  262. 
Aztecs,  legend  of,  215. 

Baal,  134. 

Babylon,  telescopic  lenses  found  in, 

381. 
Babylonians,  legends  of,  209. 
Bacon,  Francis,  225,406,437;  his 

prayer,  437. 
Bagaveda-Gita,  372,  383. 
Bahamas,  the,  377. 
Balam-Agab,  244. 
Balam  Quitze,  244. 
Balder,  the  sun,  151. 
Balder,  239-241. 
Behemoth,  309. 
Bel,  134,  224. 
Bellerophon,  137. 
Beowulf,  233,  266. 
Biela's  comet,  84 ;  history  of,  408. 
Bifrost,  the  bridge,  144. 
Bifrost,  378-382,  384. 
Botocudo  Indians,  color  of,  367. 
Botocudos,  legend  of,  181. 
Botocudos,  428. 


444 


INDEX. 


Bou-Merzouj;,  remains  of,  260. 

Bourbourg,  Brasseur  de,  37Y. 

Bowlders,  6  ;  their  great  size,  6. 

Brahm,  223. 

Brahma  and  the  comet,  132. 

Brahma,  372. 

Branches,  the  twelve,  of  the  Chi- 
nese, 210. 

Brasseur  de  Bourbourg,  the  Abbe, 
218. 

Brazil,  rocks  of,  decomposed  by  fire, 
103. 

Brazil,  259. 

Bridge,  the,  376. 

Briton  legends,  370. 

Britons,  ancient,  legend  of,  135. 

Brittany,  259,  262. 

Bronze,  the,  bottles,  269. 

Brorsen's  comet,  104  ;  spectrum  of, 
105. 

Bryant,  C.  S.,  277. 

Bungogees,  of  India,  legend  of,  195. 

Buried  races,  legend  of,  in  Europe, 
204. 

Burned  logs  in  Drift,  353. 

Buyau,  the  island,  387. 

Byron,  description  of  Apollo  slay- 
ing Python,  173  ;  description  of 
the  Age  of  Darkness,  225,  228. 

Cacus,  242. 

Cain,  368. 

Cadmus,  261. 

California,  the  Drift  absent  from 
parts  of,  31. 

California,  remains,  352. 

Cambrian  formation.  Drift  Age  of, 
433. 

Canada,  trees  found  in  Drift,  48. 

Carboniferous  formation,  Drift  Age 
of,  434. 

Carbureted  hydrogen,  105  ;  explo- 
sions of,  106. 

Carron,  the  river,  346. 

Carving,  pre-glacial,  352. 

Cave-life,  legends  of,  195  ;  of  the 
Hill  Tribes  of  India,  195  ;  of  the 
Peruvians,  195;  of  the  Toltecs, 
195  ;  of  the  Tinneh  Indians,  196 ; 
of    the   Navajos,    196  ;    of    the 


Lenni-Lenape,  200  ;  of  the  Ton- 
kaways,  200  ;  of  the  Hirpani, 
2it0 ;  of  the  Creeks,  Seminoles, 
Choctaws,  etc.,  201 ;  of  the  Six 
Nations,  201 ;  of  the  Oraibi,  202  ; 
Indians  of  Mount  Shasta,  202 ; 
buried  races  in  Europe,  204 ;  of 
the  Omahas,  206. 

Central  American  legends,  166. 

Cerambos,  213. 

Ceylon,  372. 

Chakabech,  182. 

Chakekenapok,  258. 

Chaleux,  cave  of,  347. 

Chapewee,  182. 

Charon,  387. 

Chicago  fire,  the,  414, 420,  421,  423. 

Chickasaws,  legends  of,  201. 

Chickasaws,  428. 

Chima  and  Chesil,  277. 

Chima?ra,  137. 

China,  259. 

Chinese  accounts  of  comets,  136. 

Chinese  legends,  210. 

Chinese  Encyclopaedia,  259. 

Choctaws,  legends  of,  201. 

Cholula,  legend  of,  215. 

Christianity,  its  work,  317. 

City  of  Brass,  the,  268,  273. 

Civilization  of  pre-glacial  man,  341. 

Clausen,  M.,  408. 

Clay,  Drift,  2,  3 ;  how  distributed, 
14 ;  not  produced  by  glaciers, 
17,  18 ;  not  produced  by  ice- 
sheets,  18  ;  its  origin,  13o ;  its 
color,  34  ;  the  fall  of,  251 ;  clay, 
the,  308  ;  how  made,  76. 

Clays,  blue,  yellow,  and  red,  403. 

Clouds,  the  stealing  of  the,  109 ; 
the  world  wrapped  in,  109. 

Codex  Chimalpopoca,  166,  265. 

Coggia's  comet,  75  ;  its  proximity  to 
the  sun,  86. 

Coin,  pre-glacial,  355. 

Comet,  a,  produced  the  Drift,  63 ; 
what  is,  65 ;  composed  of  pon- 
derable matter,  66 ;  shines  by 
inherent  light,  66 ;  carbon  in,  66  ; 
movements  in  particles  of,  66 ; 
reflect  sunlight,  67  ;  the  nucleus 


INDEX. 


445 


of,  6*7  ;  not  transparent,  67  ;  com- 
posed of  innumerable  solid  par- 
ticles, 68 ;  of  stones,  70 ;  the 
origin  of  comets,  70 ;  they  belong 
to  the  solar  system,  70 ;  are  ex- 
ploded planets,  71 ;  organic  re- 
mains found  in  meteorites,  73 ; 
how  the  comet  produces  striated 
stones  and  clay-dust,  74  ;  perpet- 
ual motion  in  comets,  75 ;  the 
great  comet  of  1843,  77;  Win- 
necke's,  104 ;  Brorsen's,  104. 

Comet,  the,  explosions  when  enter- 
ing the  atmosphere,  106. 

Comet,  Temple's,  397  ;  Swift's,  397. 

Comets,  the,  party-colored,  76  ;  are 
material,  77  ;  their  rapid  motion, 
77;  could  one  strike  the  earth  ? 
82 ;  numbers  of  comets  in  the 
heavens,  82 ;  orbits  of,  83 ; 
Biela's  comet,  84 ;  Lexell's,  84 ; 
Encke's,  85;  the  comet  of  1843, 
77,  86;  the  comet  of  1881,  87; 
of  1844,  88  ;  the  great  comet  of 
1811,  94,  95. 

Comets,  consequences  to  earth  of 
contact  with,  91;  increase  of 
heat,  100. 

Comets,  universal  belief  as  to,  424. 

Comets  have  struck  the  earth  many 
times,  431. 

Complexion  of  white  men,  cause  of, 
367. 

Conflagration,  evidences  of,  in  the 
rocks,  103;  must  have  been  lo- 
cal, 104;  description  of,  108. 

Conflagration,  described  by  Hesi- 
od ;  described  by  Ovid,  154;  de- 
scribed in  Central  American  le- 
gends, 166. 

"  Crag  and  Tail,"  98. 

Creeks,  legends  of,  201. 

Cretaceous  Drift,  434. 

Croly,  369. 

Curtis,  David  A.,  354. 

Cycles,  the  great,  223. 

Cyclones,  power  of,  396. 

Dahish,  272. 

Dalles  of  the  St.  Croix  Eiver,  51. 


Damoiseau,  M.,  408. 

Darkness,  the  Age  of,  208  ;  legends 
of,  208  ;  Hesiod,  208  ;  Aristoph- 
anes, 208  ;  Sanchoniathon,  208  ; 
the  Babylonians,  209,  223;  of 
the  Hindoos,  209;  of  the  Chi- 
nese, 210  ;  Thlinkeets,  213  ;  Miz- 
tecs,  213;  Aztecs,  215;  Toltecs, 
215;  Quiches,  216;  Gallinome- 
ros,  222;  Algonquins,  232;  By- 
ron's description  of  Age  of  Dark- 
ness, 226. 

Deluge  of  Deucalion,  403,  404. 

Deluge  of  Noah,  403,  427. 

Dentistry  of  Egyptians  and  Peru- 
vians, 381. 

Deucalion's  Deluge,  403,  404. 

Deuteronomy,  263. 

Dev  Mrityu,  275. 

Diamond,  origin  of,  267. 

Diluvial  Age,  10. 

Diluvial  theory  explained,  10 ;  gen- 
erally abandoned,  12. 

Dimiriat,  271. 

"  Dr.  Ox's  Hobbv,"  423. 

Dog-Rib  Indians",  182. 

Donati's  comet,  75,  96,  311. 

Doris,  368. 

Double  comets,  135. 

Dragon,  the,  429. 

Drift,  The,  its  characteristics,  2; 
unstralified,  2 ;  unfossiliferous, 
4  ;  stones  of,  5  ;  bowlders  of,  6  ; 
its  origin  unknown,  8  ;  not  caused 
by  waves,  10;  its  elevation,  10; 
not  of  marine  origin,  11;  not 
produced  by  sea-waves,  10  ;  nor 
by  icebergs,  13  ;  nor  by  glaciers, 
17;  nor  by  continental  ice-sheets, 
23  ;  none  in  Siberia,  28 ;  nor  in 
parts  of  Europe,  30 ;  nor  in  parts 
of  America,  31  ;  extent  of,  in 
America,  33;  in  the  Arctic  regions, 
36  ;  in  Brazil,  37;  in  Africa,  39  ; 
the  Drift  a  sudden  catastrophe, 
43  ;  result  of  violent  action,  46  ; 
a  cataclysm,  46,  55  ;  destruction 
of  life  by,  46  ;  its  action  instan- 
taneous, 47 ;  covered-up  forests, 
43  ;  great  breaks  in  earth  accom- 


446 


INDEX. 


panied,  51  ;  the^^ort/s,  51  ;  rocks 
underneath  smashed  and  pounded, 
52 ;  Drift  driven  into  rocks  be- 
low, 52,  53  ;  the  oceans  lowered 
during  Drift  Age,  61  ;  force  with 
which  the  Drift  came,  97 ;  blown 
into  drifts  like  snow,  98 ;  the 
striations  under,  how  caused,  99  ; 
the  rocks  under  lustrous,  99;  the 
groovings  not  regular,  100 ;  did 
man  exist  before?  121. 

Druids,  legend  of,  135. 

Druid  legends,  370. 

Du-zu,  233. 


Earth,  consequences  to,  if  struck  by 
comet,  91,  107 ;  the  side  struck 
by  the  comet,  93 ;  increase  of 
heat,  100 ;  full  of  combustible 
material,  102. 

Eblis,  271. 

Echidna,  137. 

Eddas,  the,  141,  142. 

Eden,  368,  405. 

Eliphaz,  the  Temanite,  283,  367. 

Encke's  comet,  85. 

Engis  skull,  the,  124,  348. 

Enoch,  the  Book  of,  426. 

Eocene  Drift,  434. 

Europe,  the  Drift  absent  from  parts 
of,  30. 

European  legends,  262. 

Evaporation  of  the  seas  and  rivers, 
108. 

Evolution,  theory  of,  406. 

Fenris-wolf,  the,  148. 

Eenris,  the  wolf,  382,  396. 

Feridun,  171. 

Fiords,  their  origin,  51. 

"Fire-damp"  in  comets,  105. 

Fires,  great,  in  America,  413 ;  in 
Wisconsin,  414 ;  in  Michigan, 
416;  in  Chicago,  414,  420. 

Flint,  the,  256-259,  265,  303. 

"Flvsch,  the,"  435. 

Folk-lore,  116. 

France,  Drift  at  Joinville,  54. 

Furfooz,  cave  of,  347. 


Gama,  186. 

Gambart,  M.,  408. 

Ganglere,  378-380. 

Garm,  the  dog,  396. 

Genesis,  of  the  Babylonians,  223. 

Genesis,  read  by  comet-light,  316. 

Ginungagap,  149,  393. 

Glacial  Age  described  in  Kagnarok, 
148. 

Glacial  Age,  396. 

Glaciers,  described,  17 ;  did  not  pro- 
duce the  Drift,  1 7  ;  do  not  pro- 
duce Drift-clay,  18  ;  rivers  issuing 
from,  19  ;  terminal  moraines  of, 
20  ;  "  till  "  in  Switzerland  not 
produced  by  glaciers,  22  ;  glacier- 
furrows,  26. 

Golden  Age,  the,  before  the  Drift, 
43. 

Golden  Age,  372. 

Gomorrah,  388. 

Gothic  legends,  370. 

Granite,  the  source  of  the  clays, 
76. 

Granite,  the,  its  nature,  436. 

Gravel,  part  of  Drift,  2 ;  where  did 
it  come  from  ?  1 1  ;  in  Africa,  40  ; 
the  ocean  produces  but  little,  78  ; 
produced  more  by  rivers  than 
oceans,  79  ;  Drift,  differs  from 
common,  80  ;  rain  of,  from  heav- 
en, 166  ;  the  fall  of,  251,  265. 

Gravel,  the,  304. 

Great  Britain,  "  till  "  of,  4  ;  fiords 
of,  51. 

Great  fires  in  America,  413,  421. 

Great  Lakes  of  America,  pre-glacial 
forests  of,  50. 

Greek  legends,  "87. 

Greenland,  ice-sheets  of,  32 ;  ice- 
bergs and  glaciers  of,  35 ;  ice- 
sheets  of,  40 ;  pre-glacial  climate 
of,  44  ;  fiords  of,  51. 

Grendel,  233. 

Guachimenes,  180. 

Gylfe,  370,  378. 

Hannibal,  390. 
Haokah,  257. 
Har,  379,  381. 


INDEX. 


447 


Hare,  the  Great,  173,  182,  361  ;  le- 
gends concerning,  362,  374. 

Hea,  224. 

Heat,  great,  a  prerequisite  of  the 
Drift  Age,  58. 

Heat  from  comets,  100 ;  rocks  de- 
composed bv,  103. 

Heimdal,  146, "381,  382. 

Hercules,  242,  262,  394. 

Hermod,  240. 

Herodotus,  370. 

Hcrschel,  Sir  John,  86. 

Hesiod,  legend  of,  136. 

Hesiod,  261. 

Hesperides,  the,  262. 

Heva,  372,  373,  383. 

Himinbjorg,  381. 

Hindoo  legends,  263. 

Hoder,  the  night,  151. 

Hodur,  239,  241. 

Horse,  pre-glacial,  351. 

Horns,  234. 

Humboldt,  Alexander  von,  220, 
253,  408. 

Hurakan,  257. 

Hurricanes,  power  of,  396. 

Ice  Age,  what  it  was,  389. 

Icebergs,  did  not  produce  the  Drift, 
13 ;  do  not  carry  defSris,  15 ; 
could  not  mark  the  rocks,  16 ;  do 
not  striate  surface-rocks,  35. 

Ice-sheets,  continental,  did  not  pro- 
duce the  Drift,  23 ;  supposed 
elevation  of  land,  24 ;  no  down- 
ward movement  of  mountain-ice, 
24. 

Ilia,  243. 

Illinois,  Drift  deposits  of,  28  ;  pre- 
glacial  forests  of,  48 ;  coin  found 
in,  355. 

Increased  light  of  stars,  101. 

Indians  of  Mount  Shasta,  their  le- 
gends, 202. 

Indra,  237,  238. 

Intercalated  beds,  the,  53,  54. 

Iowa,  the  Drift  absent  from  parts 
of,  31 ;  does  not  extend  west  of, 
31. 

Iqui-Balam,  244. 


Iraghdadakh,  258. 

Ireland,  Drift  in,  4  ;  trees  found  in 

Drift,  48. 
Ireland,  259,  381. 
Irish  elk,  54. 

Iroquois  legends,  the,  173,  204,  373. 
Isis,  235,  240. 
Island,  the,  of  the  Innocent,  300, 

367. 
Italy,  no  true  Drift  in,  21. 
Ivan,  the  simple,  242. 

Jafnhar,  393. 
Japan,  legends  of,  258. 
Jasher,  the  book  of,  204. 
Job,  367,  377,  394,  404,  438. 
Job,  the  book  of,  276. 
Job,  an  Arabian,  278. 
Johnson,  Dr.  Samuel,  115. 
Joinville,  Drift  of,  54. 
Joshua,  legend  of,  264. 
Joskeha,  173,  373. 
Jupiter,  the  planet,  struck  by  Lex- 
ell's  comet,  85. 
Jurassic  Drift,  434. 

Kamucu,  the  song,  246. 

Kang-hi,  259. 

Kansas,  ancient  remains  of  man  in, 

129. 
Kerlaugs,  the,  380. 
Koran,  the,  406. 
Kormt,  380. 
Krishna,  361,  372. 

Labrador,  fiords  of,  51. 

Lakes,  the  Great,  of  America,  what 
caused  them,  95,  96. 

Lanka,  263. 

Lanka,  Island  of,  370,  371,  375. 

Lankha,  Island  of,  172. 

Legends,  their  description  of  the 
comet,  76  ;  of  the  coming  of  the 
comet,  132;  the  Hindoo  legend, 
132  ;  of  the  ancient  Persians,  134, 
171 ;  the  Druid  legend,  135  ;  the 
ancient  Greek,  136;  Ragnarok, 
141;  of  Phaeton,  154;  of  Tol- 
tecs,  166  ;  of  Tahoc  Indians,  167 ; 
of  Aztecs,  169  ;  of  Hindoos,  171 ; 


448 


IXDEX. 


of  Phoibos  Apollo,  173 ;  of  the 
Algonquins,  173  ;  of  the  Iroquois, 
173 ;  of  the  Tupi  Indians,  175 ; 
of  the  TacuUies,  177  ;  of  the  Ute 
Indians,  177;  of  the  Peruvians, 
179;  Yurucares,  181;  Mbocobi, 
181;  Botocudos,  181;  Ojibways, 
181 ;  Wyandots,  182  ;  of  the  Dog- 
Eib  Indians,  182  ;  of  the  Polyne- 
sians, 183 -;  of  the  Germans,  184; 
of  the  Miztecs,  185 ;  of  the  Az- 
tecs, 186  ;  of  the  Bungogees  and 
Pankhoos,  195 ;  of  the  Tinneh 
Indians,  196  ;  of  the  Xavajos, 
196  ;  of  the  Lenni-Lenape,  200  ; 
of  the  Tonka  ways,  200;  of  the 
Hispani,  200 ;  of  the  Creeks, 
Seminoles,  Choctaws,  etc.,  2iJl  ; 
of  the  Six  Nations,  201  ;  of  the 
Oraibi,  202  ;  of  the  Indians  of 
Mount  Shasta,  202  ;  of  buried 
races  in  Europe,  204 ;  of  the 
Omahas,  205  ;  of  the  Age  of 
Darkness,  208;  of  the  Phoeni- 
cians, 208 ;  of  the  Babylonians, 
209 ;  of  the  Hindoos,  209  ;  the 
Chinese,  210;  the  Thlinkeets, 
213  ;  Miztecs,  213  ;  Cholula,  215  ; 
of  the  triumph  of  the  sun,  233  ; 
the  Syrian  legend,  233  ;  the  He- 
brew, 233  ;  the  Assyrian,  233  ; 
the  Gothic,  233  ;  of  Beowulf,  233 ; 
the  Egyptian  belief,  234;  of  the 
Hindoos,  237  ;  of  the  Esquimaux, 
239 ;  of  the  Tupis,  239 ;  of  the 
Scandinavians,  239  ;  celebrated 
in  the  Mav-day  festivals,  240 ; 
Legends,  241,  242,  243,  244,  245, 
246,  247,  248,  249,  250,  251,  253, 
254,  256,  257,  258,  259,  260,  261, 
262,  263,  264,  265,  266,  268,  270  ; 
Persian,  385  ;  Moslem,  386 ;  Es- 
Sirat,  legend  of  the  bridge,  386 ; 
Brig  of  Dread,  386 ;  Borneo,  le- 
gend of,  386  ;  Burmah,  legend  of, 
386  ;  Karens,  legend  of  the,  386  ; 
Java,  legend  of,  386  ;  Esquimaux, 
legend  of  the,  386;  Ojibways, 
legend  of,  386 ;  Choctaws,  legend 
of,  386 ;    Manacicas,  legend  of, 


386  ;  Yama,  legend  of,  387 ; 
Pol\Tiesians,  legend  of,  387  ;  Hin- 
doos, legend  of,  387 ;  Aryans, 
legend  of,  387 ;  African  legend, 

387  ;  Guinea  negroes,  legends  of, 
387  ;  Slavonic  legend,  387 ;  Greek 
legends,  387  ;  Northmen,  legend 
of,  387  ;  Toltec  legends,  396. 

Lenni-Lenape,  legends  of,  200. 

Leviathan,  the,  282,  309. 

Lexell's  comet,  84 ;    it  strikes  the 

planet  Jupiter,  85. 
Lif  and  Lifthraser,  150,  372,  394. 
Lizana,  Father,  428. 
Logs  buried  in  Drift,  353. 
Louisiana,   pre-glacial    remains  in, 

131 ;  remains  found  in,  346. 
Lubbock,  Sir  John,  350,  352. 
Lucifer,  247. 
Lygian,  the  field,  262. 
Lyonnesse,  the  country  of,  145. 

Machito,  212. 

Macpherson,  author  of  Ossian,  115. 

Madagascar,  259. 

Mahucutah,  244. 

Maine,  fiords  of,  51. 

Slalachi,  425. 

Mammoth,  pre-glacial  man's  picture 
of,  349: 

Man,  did  he  exist  before  the  Drift? 
121  ;  his  remains  found  in  dif- 
ferent countries,  121 ;  remains 
in  Miocene,  127;  remains  in  Pli- 
ocene, 128;  in  California,  128, 
130;  in  Colorado,  128;  in  Lou- 
isiana, 131;  in  Kansas,  129;  in 
Missouri,  129. 

Mandans,  428. 

Manibozho,  173,  205,  258,  361,  374. 

Mareechee,  133. 

Markings  on  rocks  underneath  the 
Drift,  25. 

Marlboro,  Ohio,  remains  found  at, 
353. 

Mattoles,  the  legend  of,  256. 
'  Maui,  183,  184. 

Mayas,  428. 

May-day,  241 ;  celebration  of,  240 ; 
its  meaning,  241. 


INDEX. 


449 


May-pole,  241. 

Mbocobi,  legend  of,  181. 

Meda-worsliip,  362. 

Memphis,  Tennessee,  remains  found 

near,  354. 
Mentone  skeleton,  the,  122. 
Mero,  3Y0. 
Meropes,  370,  380. 
Merops,  370. 
Merou,  3T0. 
Meru,  238,  3*70. 
Meteoric  shower  of  the  year  1202, 

429;  of  1366,  429. 
Meteoroids,  397,  398. 
Meteorites,  397,  398. 
Michabo,  428. 

Michael,  the  archangel,  248. 
Michigan,  University  of,  50;  great 

fire  in,  416. 
Midgard-serpent,  the,  143,  395. 
Milton,  246,  430. 
Miraer's  well,  109,  394. 
Minnesota,  the  Drift  absent  from 

part  of,  31 ;  the  clays  of,  33,  403, 

413. 
Miocene,  man  of,  128. 
Miocene-drift,  435. 
Mississippi  Valley,   remains   found 

in,  354. 
Missouri,  ancient  remains  of  man 

in,  129. 
Miztecs,  legends  of,  185,  266,  374. 
Monan,  IS 8. 

Morayshire  legends,  202. 
Muspel,  379,  382,  384. 
Muspelheira,    14± ;    meant    Africa, 

150,  393,  395. 
Myths,  the  nature  of,  113  ;  how  far 

to  be  depended  on,  115;  increas- 
ing respect  for,   110 ;    effect  of 

civilization  on,  117. 

Naglfar,  the  ship,  143,  147. 
Nana,  239. 
Nanabojti,  258. 
Nanahuatzin,  195. 
Nanih-waiya,  201. 
Natchez,  legends  of,  201. 
Navajos,  their  legends,  196. 
Navajos,  legends,  373. 


Neanderthal  skull,  the,  125,  348. 
Negro,  color  of  the,  366. 
New  York,  Drift-deposits  of,  28. 
Niagara,    Falls    of,    recession    of, 

404. 
Nibir,  224. 
Niflheim,  393,  395. 
Noah's  Deluge,  403,  404. 
Nod,  land  of,  368. 
Noachic  Deluge,  10. 
Northern  Cross,  star  in,  101. 
Northmen,  381. 
Norwich  crag,  forest  of,  48. 
Nova  Scotia,  fiords  of,  51. 

Objections  considered,  389. 

Odin,  gives  his  eye  for  a  drink  of 

water,   109;  his  death,  147;  his 

tablets  found,  152,  394. 
Ohio,  pre-glacial  remains  of,  50. 
Ohio,  353. 

Ojibways,  legend  of,  181. 
Old  Ecd  Sandstone,  Drift  Age  of, 

434. 
Omahas,  legend  of,  205. 
Oraibi,  legends  of,  202. 
Oregon,  the  Drift  absent  from  parts 

of,  31. 
Ormaz,  237. 
Ormt,  380. 
Orpheus,  208. 
Osars,  346. 
Osiris,  234-241. 
Ossian,  115. 

Ovid,  260,  368,  378,  384,  427. 
Oxygen  in  the  atmosphere,  102. 
Ogyges,  deluge  of,  404. 

Pacarin-Tampu,  the  House  of  Birth, 

ISO,  195. 
Pagan  idols,  421. 
Pallas,  261. 

Pankhoos,  of  India,  legend  of,  195. 
Pa'n-ku,  210. 
"  Paradise  Lost,"  246. 
Patagonia,  Drift  of,  11. 
Permian-Drift,  434. 
Persian  fire-worship,  171. 
Perthes,  Boucher  de,  346. 
Peru,  legends  of,  266. 


450 


INDEX. 


Perun,  2G0. 

Peruvian  legends,  373. 

Peruvians,  belief  of,  428. 

Peshtigo,  great  fire  in,  414,  415. 

Peter,  Saint,  second  epistle  of, 
427. 

Petite  Anse  Island,  346. 

Phaeton,  the  conflagration  of,  154  ; 
his  death,  1G2;  his  epitaph,  162. 

Phaeton,  370,  388. 

Phoenicians,  261. 

Phoibos  Apollo,  173. 

Pigucrao,  ISO. 

Pindar,  140. 

Plato,  369,  383,  404,  427. 

Pliocene,  man  of,  127. 

Pliocenes  of  Tuscany,  351. 

Plummet,  syenite,  California,  130. 

Polynesians,  legends  of,  183. 

Popul  Vuh,  the,  216,  244. 

Port  Huron,  great  fii'e  iu,  416. 

Portugal,  259. 

Poseido;^,  369,  315,  427. 

Prc-glacial,  the,  climate,  43  ;  man, 
45  ;  animals  of,  destroyed,  46  ; 
forests,  47  ;  pre-glacial  man,  121 ; 
bones  found,  122;  his  imple- 
ments found,  123  ;  skull,  124  ; 
his  extinction,  126 ;  pre-glacial 
rain,  320  ;  pre-glacial  man,  civil- 
ization of,  341  ;  an  agriculturist, 
342,  343 ;  astronomical  knowl- 
edge of,  342  ;  domesticated  ani- 
mals of,  342,  343,  344  ;  musical 
instruments  of,  344,  345 ;  re- 
mains of,  345,  347  ;  pottery  of, 
347  ;  his  works  of  art,  349,  350, 
351,  352,  353 ;  coin  of,  355  ; 
pre-glacial  coin,  355. 

Prometheus  delivered,  the,  262. 

Proteus,  368. 

Pueblos,  198,  200. 

Pueblo  Indians,  428. 

Python,  171,  173. 

Quctzalcoatl,  259,  316. 
Quia-Tonatiuh,  205. 
Quiche,  the,  legends,  377. 
Quiches,  legends  of,  216,  218. 
Quiches,  244,  257,  266. 


Pa,  184,  235. 

Rabbit,  the,  killed  the  Wiuter,  205. 

Ragnarok,  141  ;  meaning  of  name, 
141  ;  the  battle  with  the  comets, 
145 ;  the  Glacial  Age  follows, 
148;  the  regeneration.  150,  234, 
239,  373,  380,  382,  427. 

Rain  of  fire  and  gravel,  legend  of, 
166. 

Rain,  pre-glacial,  320. 

Rakchasos,  373. 

Rama,  171,  263,  370,  374,  378,  394. 

Ravana,  171,  370,  375,  378. 

Ravanna,  263. 

Reindeer,  pre-glacial  representation 
of,  350. 

Revelation,  425. 

Rind,  239. 

Rocks,  surface,  under  Drift,  mark- 
ings on,  25. 

Runes,  344. 

Russia,  the  Drift  absent  from  parts 
of,  30. 

Russian  mammoths,  56. 

Russian  folk-lore,  242. 

Russian  legend,  260. 

Sahagun,  Fr.  Bernardo  de,  191. 

Sahara,  the  Desert  of,  39. 

Saint  Acheul,  remains  of  man  at, 
122. 

Saint  Croix,  Dalles  of  the,  51. 

Sanchoniathon,  legends  of,  208. 

Sanchoniathon,  2G6. 

Sand  driven  by  wind,  action  of,  99. 

San  Joaquin  Vallcv,  plummet,  352. 

Savai,  184. 

Scandinavian  legends,  141. 

Scene  of  man's  survival,  366. 

Scotland,  "  till "  of,  3,  4,  10 ;  pre- 
glacial  animals  of,  50. 

Scotland,  259. 

Scythians,  legends  of,  266. 

Sea-wavos  did  not  produce  the 
Drift,  10 ;  their  eroding  action, 
78;  limited  results  of,  78;  their 
transporting  power,  79. 

Seb,  241. 

Seminoles,  legends  of,  201. 

Seneca,  136. 


INDEX. 


451 


Set,  144,  234. 

Shah-Nameh,  171. 

Shakespeare,  430. 

Sheddad,  269. 

Shetlands,  269. 

Ships,  ancient,  found,  345,  346. 

Siberia,  no  Drift  in,  28  ;  pre-glacial 
animals  of,  49,  56. 

Siberia,  895. 

Silurian  formation,  Drift  Age  of, 
433. 

Simon,  Fray  Pedro,  345. 

Sita,  171. 

Six  Nations,  lesend  of,  201. 

Skulls,  pre-glacial,  124  ;  Engis,  124  ; 
Neanderthal,  125;  the  Calaveras 
skull,  130. 

Sleifner,  240. 

Smith,  George,  277. 

Smith,  Horatio,  241. 

Smith,  Sydney,  Rev.,  39  X 

Sodom,  388. 

Solomon,  270,  271. 

Solon,  370,  3S3. 

Solovci,  243. 

South  Georgia,  Island  of,  221. 

Stems,  the  ten,  of  the  Chinese,  210. 

Stone  image  found  in  Ohio,  353. 

Stow,  241. 

Stratified  rocks,  their  thickness,  1. 

Striated  stones  of  Drift,  5  ;  not  pro- 
duced bv  seas  or  rivers,  11. 

Stubbs,  241. 

Styx,  387. 

Sun,  the  return  of  the.  111 ;  the  tri- 
umph of,  233  ;  the,  standing  still, 
264. 

Surt,  144,  428. 

Swift,  Lewis,  87. 

Swift's  comet,  397. 

Switzerland,  "till"  of,  22. 

Tacullies,  legend  of,  177,  375. 
Tahoe  Indians,  263. 
Tahoe  legends,  375. 
Talmud,  "the,  406. 
Tamheur,  233. 
Ta-wats,  178,  258. 
Tawiscara,  173. 
Tempel's  comet,  397. 


Tennyson,  117,  145,  384. 

Terminal  moraines  described,  20 ; 
unlike  Drift  deposits,  21. 

Tertiary  Age.  the  climate  of,  43  ; 
man  of,  127. 

Tertiary  climate,  effect  of,  400. 

Teutonic  legends,  262. 

Tezcatlipoca,  prayer  to,  186. 

Tezcatlipoca,  259',  262. 

Theta  Centauri,  413. 

Thlinkects,  legend  of,  213,  219. 

Thraetaona,  171. 

Thride,  393. 

"  Till,"  the,  3  ;  its  characteristics, 
3,  4 ;  unfossiliferous,  4  ;  its  hard- 
ness, 5. 

Timandonar,  241. 

Tlaloe,  257. 

Tlandrokpah,  195. 

Tohil,  244,  257. 

Toltecs,  legend  of,  166,  215,  265. 

Totem,  the,  meaning  of,  197. 

Totem,  the,  363. 

Trail,  the,  53. 

Tritons,  368,  309. 

Tropical  plants,  could  not  have  sur- 
vived the  continental  ice-sheets, 
32  ;  found  in  Arctic  Circle,  44. 

Tulan,  244. 

Tupi  Indians,  legends  of,  )  75,  263. 

Tvphaon,  137. 

Tvpho,  235. 

Tvphoeus,  138. 

Typhon,  137,  235,  236,  241. 

United  States,  the  Drift  absent  from 

parts  of,  30. 
Universal  belief  as  to  comets,  424. 
Upa-Merou,  370. 
Uru,  224. 

Ural  Mountains,  267. 
Ute  Indians,  legends  of,  177. 
Ute,  the,  legend,  258. 

Vale,  151. 

Vali,  239. 

Vase  from  cave  of  Furfooz,  347. 

Vendidad,  237. 

Victoria  Cave,  122. 

Vidar,  147,  151. 


452 


INDEX. 


Yigrid,  the  plain,  146,  151. 
Yiking  Age,  367. 
Yiracocha,  179. 
Vladimir,  Fair  Sun,  243. 
Vritra,  237,  241. 

Waves  of  transplantation,  14. 
Winchell,  Professor  Alexander,  355, 

405,  436. 
Wind,  action  of  sand  driven  by,  in 

marking  rocks,  99. 


Winnecke's  comet,  104 ;   spectrum 

of,  105. 
Wyandots,  legend  of,  132. 

Yehl,  213. 

Ygdrasil,  the  ash,  146. 
Ygdrasil,  379. 
Yurucares,  legend  of,  181. 

Zendavesta,  legends  of,  134,  171. 
Zohak,  171. 


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entious study.  The  work  is  entitled  to  be  called  the  ablest  and  most  satisfactory 
book  on  the  subject  in  our  language.  The  author's  methods  are  dignified  and 
judicious,  and  he  ha*  availed  himself  of  all  the  recent  light  thrown  by  philolog- 
ical research  on  the  annals  of  the  East.  The  work  is  well  supplied  with  maps."' 
—Dr.  V.  K.  Adcum's  Manual  of  Historical  Literature. 

MONTESQUIEU'S  CONSIDERATION'S  ON  THE  CAUSES  OF 
THE    GRANDEUR   AND    DECADENCE    OF    THE    ROMANS. 

A  New  Translation,  together  with  an  Introduction.  Critical  and  Illustrative 
Notes,  and  an  Analytical  Index.     By  jEur  Baker.    Being  incidentally  a 
Rational  Discussion  of  the  Phenomena  and  the  Tendencies  of  History  in 
General.    12mo.    Cloth,  $2.00. 
"Mr.  Jehu  Baker  has  rendered  a  great  service  to  English-speaking  people  by 
prodncintr  a  new  and  admirable  translation  of  Montesquieu's  '  Considerations  on 
the  Grandeur  and  Decadence  of  the  Romans.'    But  Mr.  Baker  has  by  no  means 
confined  himself  to  the  siaiple  work  of  translation.    Many  foot-notes  have  been 
added  throughout  the  volume,  each  chapter  is  followed  by  an  extended  and  elab- 
orate note,  and  a  careful  analytical  index  greatly  increases  the  value  of  the  work 
for  purposes  ol  reference."— i?o«to«  Courier. 

THE    PROPHETS    OF   ISRAEL,   AND    THEIR    PLACE    IN    HIS- 
TORY, TO  THE  CLOSE  OP  THE  EIGHTH  CENTURY  B.  C.     By  W. 
Robertson  Smith,  M.A.,  LL. D.,  author  of  "The  Old  Testament  in  the 
Jewish  Church."    12mo.    Cloth,  $1.75. 
"  It  is  not  every  Professor  of  Hebrew  whose  academical  lectures  would  fur- 
nish forth  such  a  "rich  feast  as  now  lies  before  us.    Even  the  happy  few  who 
know  something  of  the  facts  of  the  Bible  will  learn  much  from  the  felicitousness 
of  the  present  exposition.    For  Mr.  Robertson  Smith  is  not  only  a  'full  man,' 
but  has  a  singular  gift  of  making  a  hard  subject  intelligible.  .  .  .  He  loves  to 
blow  awav  the  mists  of  controversy  and  show  the  tnith  in  all  its  attractive  sim- 
plicity."-^ TVje  Academy. 

THE-  VISION  OF  ESTHER.  By  Charles  De  Kat.  A  sequel  to  "  The 
Vision  of  Nimrod;  an  Oriental  Romance  in  Verse."  12mo.  Cloth,  $1.50. 
"  This  work  belongs  to  a  new  time,  to  a  new  class  of  readers  and  thinkers, 
and  to  a  future  croup  of  poets.  It  will  grow  upon  the  thought  and  attention  of 
the  public  as  independent  effort  always  does.  Mr.  De  Kay  has  an  unusual  mas- 
tery of  language ;  and  it  would  be  hard  to  find  more  beautifully  written  verse,  of 
a  vigorous  and  natural  sort,  than  one  can  easily  discover  in  this  poem.  It  need 
only  be  added  that  'Esther,'  like  the  poetry  of  M.  Sully-Prudhomme,  is  one  of 
the  signs  of  the  time.  The  movement  of  thought,  of  discovery,  of  aspiration,  is 
in  a  straight  line.  No  one  can  fail  to- see  the  line.  The  poet  must  run  as  the 
world  runs  ;  and  Mr.  De  Kuy  is  at  least  one  American  poet  who  has  felt  the  fire 
of  his  age.  He  will  Uve  longer  than  the  imitators  of  Longfellow  and  Bryant." — 
iVew  York  Times. 

POLITIC  All  INSTITUTIONS:  Being  Part  V  of  the  PRINCIPLES  OF 
SOCIOLOGY.  (The  concluding  portion  of  Volume  II.)  By  Hekbekt 
Spencer.    1  vol.,  12mo.    Cloth,  $1.50. 


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